hard drive gone repair or replace?

Sam1903

okay so daughters hard drive has gone, repair guy has said can repair with new hard drive for £110.00 is this a good deal or should I look to purchase a new laptop?


Thanks


Sam

NiftyDigits

Brand name and full model number?

If it does need replacing, you can do the job yourself for under £50.

googler

You can buy a new one for £50 and learn from YouTube and other online sources how to replace it for free.

Sam1903

it was a dell inspiron not sure of model number as repair guy has it. He has tried to retrieve data and said will replace HD and reinstall Windows 7.
Told him nothing on it needed recovering, I made recovery disks when I bought it so presumably it would be a case of just running these disks to get all the relevant drivers.
Sam

Knarf44

As others above have hinted you cando it yourself for the cost of a new hard drive. A 500GB Sata laptop 2.5" hard drive can be purchased for as little as £35 from this well established reputable online retailerhttp://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard+Drives/2.5+Inch+SATA+Drives

Get the laptop back, then on anothe computer, go to the Dell support site and download the manual for your specific model. It'll show you how to remove the hard drive. It's a 5 min job and only requires a small Phillips screwdriver and zero technical knowledge.

Refitting is the reverse process and then once installed, switch it on, access the boot menu by pressing F12 when the Dell logo appears and select the dvd/rw option. Then put the first recovery disk in and reboot the laptop and follow the on screen prompts.

For an hour's time and patience you could save yourself £80.

If you get stuck or are not sure at any point just come back to this forum and somebody will walk you through it.

Sam1903

now considering ringing him tomorrow and asking for laptop back and having a go myself.
How would I know which hard drive to buy. I see you said 500gb but would it have to be a specific model?


Thanks Sam

Knarf44

Any standard 2.5" sata hard drive will fit. 500GB is pretty standard but other options are 750GB and 1TB. It's really up to how much storage does she need? Personally, I'd stick to the 500GB size and buy an external hard drive for doing backups or for storing space consuming items like video files.

All these hard drives come with a standard 2 year warranty but if you want a 5 year warranty then for another few quid you could get a Western Digital Scorpio Black, again 500GB in size would be a good choice.

securityguy

Other possibilities would be a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid or, if you don't need as much space, an SSD. That would make the laptop quieter, cooler, better battery and (for most use cases) faster.

thescouselander

Yes, I'd recommend an SSD - you'll be wasting your life waiting for a mechanical drive.

prowla

The repair guy's quote to replace seems fair - parts & time...

But you can do it yourself and save paying for his time.

He might still need paying for the diagnosis.

Depending upon the age & power of the computer it may not be worth going for an SSD.