I use an old dell inspiron from about 2008, the hard drive is full to the gunnels and I can’t clear much as its all in that stupid win sxs? that you cant get rid of, but I don’t download much now streaming is better so that’s not a disaster.

But now I have repeated warnings that my hard drive is going to fail any minute.

Is it worth replacing the hard drive, or would I be better getting a cheap lenovo refurb off ebay?

Also recommendations for hard drive, refurb or other ideas would be welcome

Thanks in advance

Oh and also the notebook I am using now has win 10 and I hate it, would it be better on another machine, will I get used to it or should I just stay with 7?

It’s 10 years old, buy a new laptop, but it will come with windows 10. Classic shell and other various apps can make it look and behave less like W10.

Any option to just reinstall Windows? Stick with 10 though, it’s far better than 7. Just spend some time customising it to how you want.

Reinstalling is pretty much necessary every few years anyway, You’ll get massive benefits if you’re still running a 10 year old o/s.

..and it’s cheaper than buying a new laptop if the one you’ve got does all you need it to do!

W10 is OK.

If you don’t want to shell too much out, think about an SSD to improve performance massively. Get a bigger HD and ‘clone’ the data with some free software. Then swap out the old HD.  You’ll need an external USB caddy for about £15, but it does mean you’ll have a full backup of your system, unless you are happy with the new drive, you can then format the old one as storage for movies etc.

Sorry the win 10 notebook is a seperate machine, and criminally slow, just a lifeboat really till I get the other sorted

Main laptop is 7 and getting the hard drive warnings, I just don’t know if i’m better to bung in a harddrive, or if a refurb will be better.

Doubt i’d get a brand new machine, for what I use it for i’d rather spend the money on bike stuff.

All depends how much you want to spend out really. New/refurb laptop is obviously going to be better spec, so faster, more storage, newer O/S…. Windows7 is shite, have to use it at work. Go Windows 10. (Although a 10 year old laptop might not be fully compatible!)

Cheep ssd and then install Linux on it if it’s just streaming and some word processing etc.

just check that any must have apps ether run on Linux or have an alternative e.g office > open office

First I would try installing Win10 just to see how it runs, whether the hardware is compatible, etc. IME, apart from driver issues, any machine that will run Win7 will run fine on Win10. Win10 is a better, more secure OS. Win7 is pretty much at the end of its life so I wouldn’t spend money upgrading a machine that won’t run Win10.

If you are already running Win7, then you should be able to install Win10 without paying for an upgrade licence. You can download the Win10 installation files from Microsoft and create a bootable USB stick or DVD. If Win10 runs ok, then I’d look at installing an SSD and bumping the RAM up to 8BG.

What is warning you about the hard drive? is it a SMART warning or something else?

Assuning it’s a legitimate warning then back anything up urgently,  by the time you get warnings like that, death really can be iminent.

It is an old laptop though… https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/acer-ex2540-core-i3-6006u-4gb-256gb-ssd-full-hd-15.6-inch-windows-10-laptop-nx.efhek.022/version.asp

Im in the market for a new one, just something that works, internet, email and word, the odd red bull stream. Any recommendations otherwise it’ll be a  trip to Dixons or somewhere.

Matty, the machine warns me when I start it, then periodically in use, just tells me to back up and repair/replace HD

Everyone else, I’ve combined your good advice and ordered a dell from the outlet, with the cheapest harddrive option expecting to put in an ssd one soon

Thanks again, and I’m still open to recommendations on a decent ssd

Gigabyte seem fairly new to the SSD market, their stuff is good and they’re well priced.

Samsumg, Sandisc, frankly get a brand you know and you won’t go far wrong.

open to recommendations on a decent ssd

I bought a Hynix from my local PC shop, been perfectly reliable –

https://www.novatech.co.uk/search.html?s=HYNIX

(and google this if you don’t like the Win10 look 😉  “how to make win10 look like win7” )

I’m still open to recommendations on a decent ssd

Samsung Evo all the way.

Samsung evo SSD’s are ace but can be double the price of the likes of kingston, though with 5 vs 3 year warranty you may find it worth while. A cheap revitalisation with a £36 kingston 256Gb drive would be make it loads more usable. If you’ve the dell OS disc you could stick win7 back onto it & buy a cheap hdd enclosure to rip anything useful off the old drive before it dies

Personally I stick windows 10 onto it & enter your win7 key to activate it, make sure you have the key either from the sticker underneath or use a (free) key finder app, before you rip the old drive out. Though I’ve not done it lately, they still accepted the win7 free upgrade, well passed the advise cut off date for free upgrades.. so should work

The laptop is a write off, an SSD is worth more than the laptop itself

Western digital green SSDs have also now come down in price.

The laptop is a write off

That’s why he’s ordered a new one.

Oh, sorry, one probably important word of advice to anyone who buys a new Windows machine with an HDD with the intention to upgrade to an SSD immediately.

Before you swap the discs, fire it up and go through the wizard to the point you get to the desktop, you don’t need to update it or anything, just until the point you see the desktop.

If you don’t windows won’t activate.

Thanks to everyone for their help here, my new laptop should arrive soon and I expect i’ll use it for a while then order an ssd Hd.

Is there any reason I couldn’t then put the HD from the new laptop in the old one, just to see how long it lasts and out of idle curiosity?

Is there any reason I couldn’t then put the HD from the new laptop in the old one, just to see how long it lasts and out of idle curiosity?

None that I can think of, plus one of the quirks of Win10 is you (might) be able to just plug it in and use it rather than reformat the disc and start again. Not sure it’ll be able to pull of the same trick with 10yo hardware, but I’ve put a SSD from a Desktop into a Laptop and it just works (and then downloads a tonne of drivers)

Is there any reason I couldn’t then put the HD from the new laptop in the old one, just to see how long it lasts and out of idle curiosity?

You will need to activate Windows with a valid key. A Win7 key should work, as described above, but if they are different versions of Windows (Home versus Pro, for example), it’s possible that it won’t activate. Costs nothing to try though, and even if it doesn’t work, you will probably be able to just wipe it and install a fresh version of Win10 using the existing Win7 serial number.