Sell MBA "as is" or fix it first???

Be more sellable if the purchaser didn't have to do anything.

People are lazy like that. But you take the risk that no one will buy at slightly higher price. I.e. if you invest $250 into it, don't assume you'll necessarily get $250 in addition to what you were going to get anyways (not that you could ever know what you would have got if you had left the HDD out).

I personally would not spend money on repairing something like that. It's a very easy fix (though the average person won't see it that way). But the value of the machine is already diminished being an older used computer.

Spending more money on it is not going to net you an equivalent gain in value.

On ebay it will probably go for about $600-$700 if in perfect condition.

Selling it as is will probably net you about $400-$500.

So it's a risk you'd be taking.

Sell it as-is.

I would say just sell it. That is all you know is wrong with it, but if you go digging into it, and break something else, or whatever, it's on you. If you sell it as-is, you save the hassle and odds of screwing something up.