My laptop blue screened today and my computer guru friend said my hard drive is fried. Is it worth fixing a 5 year old Dell or should I buy a new one?
My hard drive is pooched
- Thread starter Twinklegirl
- Start date
Definitely time for a new laptop. I hope you didn't lose any data that are irreplaceable. I had a laptop HD go last year and it cost $1100 to retrieve data from it by a specialist. It's why I always back up to an external HD now.Twinklegirl said:
For sure time for a new one. I just bought a new laptop even though there was nothing wrong with my old one. My old one is 4-5 years old so I figured before something lets go i should switch. The other advantage of getting a new laptop is it makes you want to work again, but that should wear off in about two weeks. I got an amazing deal on Kijiji on a brand new Lenovo T61 by the way.
O
OnTheWayOut
new for sure
You can get a new low end laptop for $500 or less that will be light years better than your old one. Consider an extended warranty since you're not tech savvy. But compare the warranty from the store you buy vs the manufacturer.
I've bought my last few from The Source. Their warranty cost less than the manufacturer and they covered more. I've used their service once and it was decent.
You can get a new low end laptop for $500 or less that will be light years better than your old one. Consider an extended warranty since you're not tech savvy. But compare the warranty from the store you buy vs the manufacturer.
I've bought my last few from The Source. Their warranty cost less than the manufacturer and they covered more. I've used their service once and it was decent.
Ok, slow down people. There is not one thing wrong with a 5 yr old computer. If everything is working properly it's processing capability is just fine for day to day work such as surfing the net, emails, spreadsheets, word processing and even watching videos. In fact, unless you're processing photos, running 3D CAD programs, or running high demand video games, your laptop is just fine.
Twinkle: don't let the "gotta have the latest and greatest lemmings" fool you. If you can replace your HDD for under $100.00, you could get another 5 yrs out of your PC.
Anyone who replaces something that isn't broken and doesn't need to is just buying into the marketing hype.
Oh, and yeah, you can buy cheap laptops these days but $500.00 is still 5 times more than $100.00.
Twink: what are the specs on your unit?
BTW: $61.00 for this one from NCIX
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=35698&vpn=HM121HC&manufacture=Samsung
$61.00 is a HELL of a lot cheaper than $500.00.
Twinkle: don't let the "gotta have the latest and greatest lemmings" fool you. If you can replace your HDD for under $100.00, you could get another 5 yrs out of your PC.
Anyone who replaces something that isn't broken and doesn't need to is just buying into the marketing hype.
Oh, and yeah, you can buy cheap laptops these days but $500.00 is still 5 times more than $100.00.
Twink: what are the specs on your unit?
BTW: $61.00 for this one from NCIX
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=35698&vpn=HM121HC&manufacture=Samsung
$61.00 is a HELL of a lot cheaper than $500.00.
I'm not convinced the blue screen is saying your HD is fried. I would still try 1 more thing. Buy an external USB case for Laptop HD and try pluging it in to another computer to see if it spins up. Can take the case back after the test. It could just be you have some corruption in Windows files. This has known to happen. 
If that is the case It's not hard to fix that.
If that is the case It's not hard to fix that.Buy a new one....
...you will get a faster computer that will have a warranty, and that will come with an updated operating system. Unless you are a computer geek yourself and have been METICULOUSLY taking care of your PC and are prepared to continue to do maintenance, this is the first sign of several things that will go wrong over time. PCs are not static devices...they produce heat and having moving parts...which means they wear out.
Insofar as advice from others....hard drive for a laptop will more than likely be more than $100, and labor costs to replace it AND transfer over all your files will absolutely be more than that....and unless you saved copies of your old OS you will have to buy a new one since the new hard drive will not come with one. Accordingly, the financial savings is not that great, and in fact you could end up spending more than a new PC would cost...
Twinklegirl said:
...you will get a faster computer that will have a warranty, and that will come with an updated operating system. Unless you are a computer geek yourself and have been METICULOUSLY taking care of your PC and are prepared to continue to do maintenance, this is the first sign of several things that will go wrong over time. PCs are not static devices...they produce heat and having moving parts...which means they wear out.
Insofar as advice from others....hard drive for a laptop will more than likely be more than $100, and labor costs to replace it AND transfer over all your files will absolutely be more than that....and unless you saved copies of your old OS you will have to buy a new one since the new hard drive will not come with one. Accordingly, the financial savings is not that great, and in fact you could end up spending more than a new PC would cost...
I have a 4 year old Dell that works fine and if all that was wrong with it was a hard drive crash then I would just replace the hard drive as well. I am guessing that you already have all of the other peripherals that you want (bag, headphones, etc.) that would become scrap if you buy a new one.
There are plenty of sub $100 hard drives at canada computers, easier to deal with than a mail order outfit:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProdList&cmd=pl&id=HD.517.139
Some questions:
1) Do you have a CD with the original OS? If you don't, then yep, go buy a new laptop. You will spend over $100 on a legal copy of the OS as well as the price of the hard drive.
2) Do you have a guru to actually physically swap the hard drive? Most people have never done this on a laptop and I suggest you do not learn on yours.
3) Other than the hard drive, were you happy with it before? If you were already unhappy then it might be time to buy a new one.
But be aware, all the speed improvements in the last 5 years HAVE NOT translated into any speed improvements in normal usage. Surfing the net, typing e-mails and watching youtube videos is just as fast on a P900 as it is on a P3.0GHz. I have a number of Win 2000 machines at home and they are snappier than the Vista machine I have with about 1/4 of the hardware. I don't do CAD or gaming though.
So, if you have the original OS CD and a guru, you can be back to where you were for about $100. For these new laptops in the $500 range, you will be getting something shiny and new with a nicer screen than you have now. You will need to reinstall any apps and find your old photos no matter which option you choose.
And if you go the $100 route and are still unhappy, you can probably sell or gift the old machine and pursue a new one.
PS, if the old one lacks wireless then that is something worth having. You must already know that though if your does not have it.
There are plenty of sub $100 hard drives at canada computers, easier to deal with than a mail order outfit:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProdList&cmd=pl&id=HD.517.139
Some questions:
1) Do you have a CD with the original OS? If you don't, then yep, go buy a new laptop. You will spend over $100 on a legal copy of the OS as well as the price of the hard drive.
2) Do you have a guru to actually physically swap the hard drive? Most people have never done this on a laptop and I suggest you do not learn on yours.
3) Other than the hard drive, were you happy with it before? If you were already unhappy then it might be time to buy a new one.
But be aware, all the speed improvements in the last 5 years HAVE NOT translated into any speed improvements in normal usage. Surfing the net, typing e-mails and watching youtube videos is just as fast on a P900 as it is on a P3.0GHz. I have a number of Win 2000 machines at home and they are snappier than the Vista machine I have with about 1/4 of the hardware. I don't do CAD or gaming though.
So, if you have the original OS CD and a guru, you can be back to where you were for about $100. For these new laptops in the $500 range, you will be getting something shiny and new with a nicer screen than you have now. You will need to reinstall any apps and find your old photos no matter which option you choose.
And if you go the $100 route and are still unhappy, you can probably sell or gift the old machine and pursue a new one.
PS, if the old one lacks wireless then that is something worth having. You must already know that though if your does not have it.
slurp said:
That's not actually true. Windows Vista still takes allot of ram, and resources. IMO, the bus speeds of a low end laptop don't cut it, and you only run into higher external CPU speeds on higher end laptops. Just to say with 4GB of ram, you don't get 4GB because of the operating system.... and SODIMM's, have a memory and a I/O clock which are half the difference of each other. Also most low end laptops don't have their own memory for video. So you'd be using using shared memory because of an intergrated video controller like Intel Integrated Video Controller GM965.. Because of the requirements for Windows Vista, like for Aero graphics, you'd be using allot more for video memory. I don't know why anyone is talking about CAD since most CAD programs should be running on a nVIDIA QuatroFX or FireGL graphics adapter which not many laptops have.
Furthermore, I don't see a change of how poorly multiple thread processing is handled by a interval timer interrupt routine. Which has to do with updating the threads CPU's statistics.... and this is in Vista!
The point is. I have handled allot of laptops in the $400-$700 range. Some are good, and some are just bad. This is Vista we are talking about, not Windows XP.
When I get a laptop that doesn't have a working LCD. I ask myself, I wonder why they sold it. Because A), they were too cheap to get it fixed, yet, it would be cost effective but their heads aren't on straight, or B) They don't know any better. Usually it turns out to be the Inverter which is $20 for the original ones, or the LCD Panel which is just in the $100 range. I still make my money since I just resell it. Thanks to those people out there!
If it's a IDE Hard drive with a mini IDE connector, then just replace the hard-drive with a 2.5 inch one if it's fried. You can sometimes diagnostics the Logic board controller, but if something rattles inside of it, this usually means that there is something wrong with the head assembly stack.
BTW, the only person with common-sense on this thread is BSI.
Sargeant StiffCock said:
Good luck with warranty buddy. I should know since I'm a authorized dealer with them, and I get mine through Supercom.
Again you were looking for a deal right? Yep..
No matter how it turns out, an external HD for backing up your data is a worthwhile investment.
The 250G units in Costco with no power cord (USB powered) look pretty compact. And if you want to share your stuff, it is easy to do with one of these things.
You don't need to carry it with you all the time but you should back your stuff up (usually pictures) at least weekly.
The 250G units in Costco with no power cord (USB powered) look pretty compact. And if you want to share your stuff, it is easy to do with one of these things.
You don't need to carry it with you all the time but you should back your stuff up (usually pictures) at least weekly.
bsi said:
We should be talking RAID here since one hard drive can fail as well.. No-one has the time to do double backup all the time, or unless they forget because something is not synchronized. RAID 1 which mirrors data is most effective.
I would also watch what type of hard drive's you buy. You get what you pay for. Maxtor's DIAMONDMAX were the first to offer fluid dynamic bearing motors. They had quality to them. People have to realize about what they're paying for. They assume that the lower the price the better. If it has the same specs, they might be the same. This is not actually true. the spindle motors are built differently, for the different series of harddrives from one manufacture. This is why SAS Hard Drives are really expensive, and you don't get the capacity that you would on SATA ones for the price value.. and for a reason.
We're going to see a big problem when hybrid hard drives start to fail since they will be powering up and down all the time due to wear and tear on the motors.
One of the things people don't realize with "backing up their data" is that you don't have to back up your entire hard drive, just the areas where you have files stored. In other words, just the stuff you've saved.bsi said:
I constantly tell people to create a folder on their drive called, ahem, storage then file everything in there. Then once every couple or three months burn that to a cd or dvd rom and date it.
Other than my MP3 files, and videos, I have less than a GB of data and that includes contacts, accounting backups of business files, CAD drawings everything.
BTW: wonderboy, I resent your comment that the only one making sense in this thread is BSI. My advice was bang on.....
tboy said:
Yeah, your comments are good as well. My apologizes. You're correct about just saving the files you want, but some people would want an image of their drive.
Sometimes I back up the Master Boot Record manually, along with everything else. But I find that sometimes it's hard to restore, and easily screwed up. So I use Acronis, or PCTOOLS.
By "CD or DVD Rom", you mean burn it to a blank disc? Is there a preference for CD or DVD? I heard that DVD is sturdier (in addition to higher capacity) and will live longer.tboy said:
