Headphone jack not working after installing hard drive. Inspiron N7110

Hello. The reason the list in the Device Managers of the 2 computers if different is because yours has the vendor's (manufacturers of the device) drivers installed, but your husband's does not -- it is using the Windows native (default) drivers. To install the vendors' drivers use the disk that came with the laptop, or go to the Inspiron 17R 7110 html page to see links to all of the drivers that Dell has supplied for that model. By all, I mean for the various versions of Windows that Dell supports on that model, and the various driver versions, the latest and the older ones. 

Because you were staring from a blank hard drive, you should install these drivers in this order.

1. Dell System Software -- find it on the html page under the Category: System Utilities. It is only available if the laptop is running Win 7 32-bit or 64-bit.

2. Intel HM67 Chipset driver, under Category:Chipset. Available for Vista, 7 or 8.

3. Realtek Card Reader driver, under Category:Chipset. Available for Vista, 7 or 8.

4. Realtek audio driver, under Category:Audio. After it is installed your husband's laptop will show Realtek High Definition Audio Device in Device Manager.

5. Intel 3000 or 2000/3000 Graphics under Category:Video. After it is installed your husband's laptop will show Intel Display Audio in Device Manager. Intel Display Audio is the driver for HDMI audio when you connect to a tv using an hdmi cable.

6. Some laptops have a second graphics device that takes over from the Intel graphics during intensive graphics situations like games. If your husband's laptop has that feature then get the nVidia driver too.

Most other devices will be okay with he Windows native drivers for now, and you can install them later in any order if you need them.

When I plug in headphones or external speakers, the sound continues to come out of the laptop speakers.

I don't know if installing the drivers will fix that or not. The headphone jack should be working fine now with just the Windows native driver. Install the drivers and see what happens. If you need more help, mention the operating system, and optionally the model of your laptop and its operating system.

At the end of your instructions you say the headphone jacks should be working fine with just the Windows native driver. Do you mean they should really have been working before I install these drivers?

Yes. I'm assuming that the headphones or external speakers are the same one that worked with the old hard drive. If not, try a different set to rule out failure.

Before I install all these drivers, do you think I should open the laptop and make sure I hooked up all the ribbons correctly, or do ribbons not have a thing to do with an issue like this?

Let's see, you had to remove and replace the keyboard and its cable. That would not have affected the audio jack. Then the power button cable, the touchpad cable, & hot keyboard cable. Pretty sure that none of them would affect the jack. I don't know about a button that turns off the screen. Is it the "pre-set" button?

Will installing these drivers whether or not I really need to....affect the laptop in a negative way? I

Drivers sometimes have bugs, but these are the regular drivers that have been around for a couple or more years so they should work. After a fresh Windows installation you should always install the System Software and the Intel Chipset (in that order). The others are optional. If the card reader works without the Realtek reader driver then you don't need it. If the monitor looks okay and you don't plan on using HDMI audio then you don't need the graphics drivers. But you should install the Realtek audio driver as a test. If the jack does not work with either the Realtek audio driver or the Windows native audio driver then it could well be a hardware failure.

If the old hard drive was failing but still had a little life left in it, you could reinstall it to make sure that the jack still works. If it does then there is definitely some software reason why it doesn't work on the new drive. But putting the old drive back in just as a quick test would be a bear.

I guess I could aways revert back, right?

Yes. In device Manager right click on a device name to open the context menu, then click Properties. Click the Driver tab at the top. Click Rollback Driver to revert to the previous driver for that device..