[GJ Dandy David]

Hi everyone,

My computer has all of a sudden become incredibly slow and unreliable seeming to freeze up when running the simplest tasks and just generally messing me around. The Dell PC Checkup software that I have passed it on every test except for two of the hard drive ones so from that and the symptoms I'm thinking that I probably need to get the hard drive replaced.

That said, I'm woefully inadequate when it comes to computers so firstly I'd like to ask if my diagnosis sounds reasonable and secondly, if it does, what kind of thing should I be looking at buying?

Edit to add:
In case it's helpful, it's a Dell Inspiron 1545 running Windows 7 (64-bit) with a 500Gb hard drive and 4Gb RAM.

This post has been edited by GJ Dandy David: 30 November 2011 - 06:56 PM

[Joinee Hathorn]

GJ Dandy David, on 30 November 2011 - 06:44 PM, said:

Hi everyone,

My computer has all of a sudden become incredibly slow and unreliable seeming to freeze up when running the simplest tasks and just generally messing me around. The Dell PC Checkup software that I have passed it on every test except for two of the hard drive ones so from that and the symptoms I'm thinking that I probably need to get the hard drive replaced.

That said, I'm woefully inadequate when it comes to computers so firstly I'd like to ask if my diagnosis sounds reasonable and secondly, if it does, what kind of thing should I be looking at buying?

Edit to add:
In case it's helpful, it's a Dell Inspiron 1545 running Windows 7 (64-bit) with a 500Gb hard drive and 4Gb RAM.

Well, you'll most probably be needing a 2.5 inch drive, I'm on my XP machine at the moment, but I'll be on the W7 tomorrow so will endeavour to remember to check to find out how to establish which drive you need. However if you want to keep everything you have on your current machine, you'll need to clone the drive, so you'll want to get an external hard drive enclosure too. My Dad (who seems to be the most PC illiterate person I know) managed to do it for his desktop machine using some software from Western Digital, so I'm guessing you will be up to the job.

I'll check tomorrow and let you know.

[GJ Dandy David]

I used the 'backup and restore' tool (Or am using, I should say - it's taken 18 hours to get to 42% backed up) to back up everything from the C drive on to an external hard drive - do I need to do anymore than this?
Thanks for your help so far Noel!

[Joinee Hathorn]

GJ Dandy David, on 30 November 2011 - 08:24 PM, said:

I used the 'backup and restore' tool (Or am using, I should say - it's taken 18 hours to get to 42% backed up) to back up everything from the C drive on to an external hard drive - do I need to do anymore than this?
Thanks for your help so far Noel!

Doing that will copy your files, but if you want don't have all the program files (Windows 7 install CD (with codes), Office CD etc) then you won't have them saved, only your documents... at least I'm pretty sure that is how it'll be. So you need to clone the disc (rather than copy) to ensure that the operating system files copy properly to the boot sector of the new hard disc.

[Joinee Hathorn]

Right.
1.Type device in teh start menu search
2.Launch device manager
3.Click on disk drive
4.Search the web for the listed disk... eg. "wdc wd3200bekt-60pvmt0" which is mine a 2.5 inch, 320 GB Western Digital Sata Hard drive
5.Tell me what it is....

[Au³ Joinee Jamie]

What tests did it fail?

[Joinee Hathorn]

Note: Jamie is much more qualified in this sort of thing than me....!

[GJ Dandy David]

It's a WDC WD5000VBEVT-75A0RT0 apparently.

I'm at university at the moment but I'll rerun the checkup later and let you know which ones it is.

[GJ Dandy David]

So far, it's failed the 'Targeted Read Test', 'Funnel Seek Test' and the 'SMART Short Self Test'.

[Joinee Hathorn]

Depending on Jamie's advice... you might want something like:

1) Hard drive

2) Enclosure

You would need to install the hard drive into the enclosure and attach to your laptop. You'd then use the acronis true image software and clone the existing disk. Then swap the new and old disks and you should be able to boot the laptop up as if there was no change.... I think.

edit to add. But don't forget you can use the joinee amazon link, although I can't remember where it is...

This post has been edited by Joinee Hathorn: 02 December 2011 - 05:38 PM

[GJ Dandy David]

I've got my Windows 7 Operating System disc so pending the finding of my Microsoft Office CD by my dad that would be all the additional software installed that isn't free from the internet. Do you reckon it's still worth going to the hassle of cloning the drive?

[Joinee Hathorn]

As I said, I got my dad to do it before, it was pretty quick and pretty easy (he did it with almost no instruction from me) and I think it was actually quicker than when I did a W7 install from scratch... but then it might actually have taken him longer than he said it did.

[Au³ Joinee Jamie]

If all you've got is office and you don't mind reinstalling then I'd recommend that anyway as it'll take longer but make the PC 'fresh' if the disk has bad sectors because of the hardware failing then you might not be able to take those in the image and would end up with corruption on the new disk, which could slow it down.

I does sound like the disk is a bit ruined tbh but If it was me though I'd back all my files up and have a go at reformatting the existing disk, reinstalling windows on that and seeing if the performance is better. It might be a waste of time but then it might not be. depends on your available time to usable money ratio really

This post has been edited by Au³ Joinee Jamie: 06 December 2011 - 01:07 AM

[GJ Dandy David]

Thanks for all of your advice, this has been really helpful.