Is it worth repairing my laptop?

catwoman73

I have the laptop in the link below (ignore the stated price, I paid about £400 about 4 or 5 years ago).

http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_7741G_Core_i3_Laptop_LX.PT402.001/version.asp

It more or less still works but I had the bright idea of reinstalling all the software because it was old and clunky due to all the rubbish that accumulates over the years. Before I did the reinstall, I added extra RAM to bump it up to 8 Gb.

To do the whole clean install you have to use software that is accessed by pressing alt and F10. However, it stalled mid way through and now will not boot up at all. I tried 4 times so it is clear it is not going to work.

Is it worth paying someone who actually knows what they are doing to have a go? I have called Acer, who's overseas call centre is useless. I have also had a go at online chat but they gave mixed messages about me buying a boot disc (no boot disc was supplied with the machine) or sending it to them for repair as there was a hardware issue - I'm not sure there is - it worked fine until I started messing about with it. Luckily I did a full backup before I started.

I don't think it is worth spending a lot on it, but I don't want to just give up either. I would be happy to pay about £50 or so for it to work again and maybe get a year or two's more life out of it.

Looking at the specs of new laptops in the £3-400 price range, they seem similar to the existing one, so I wouldn't even be getting a better laptop if I did buy new?

http://www.cclonline.com/category/101/Laptops/manufacturer-155-Acer/

It's just used for emails, looking at photos, general web surfing and a bit of office type work, so I don't need the latest and best machine for gaming etc.

Knarf44

I would hazard a guess that the hard drive has one or more bad sectors and that's why the recovery failed. Did you make a set of recovery disks (dvds) when you first got the laptop as it would have prompted you too? If so, a simple hard drive replacement at a cost of around £35-45 depending on make/size should get you up and running again.

If not, then there's probably at least one regular poster on here who can forward a copy of Acer's OEM version of Windows 7 to you and then guide you through the reinstall process. This is, of course, if you are willing to have a go yourself, no great technical knowledge required and if you can follow a recipe you can repair a computer.

stator

Have you tried booting from a CD? If you can download and burn a CD/DVD with a "Live" linux installation on it, you could test the laptop to see if the hardware is all okay without affecting the software currently installed on it.
Then if all that works you can look into whether the hard drive is faulty, do you have a laptop hard drive you could try instead?

Is there anything on the laptops hard drive you need to save/backup ? Or were you planning on wiping it all now anyway?

Strider590

You could download the appropriate full install disk, burn it to CD and do a full install using the key from the sticker on the machine. You'd have to get the drivers/etc from the manufacturers website, but it's an easy process.

Downloading the disk, whilst perfectly legal (because your not using a dodgy key), could be tricky though, as most websites where this was possible have now been blocked.

fishybusiness

Strider is correct, you can download the ISO file from Microsoft here

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

You'll need a bit of techy know how to install, get hold of all the drivers and get up and running. If your hard drive is goosed, try ebuyer for a new one.

catwoman73

fishybusiness wrote: »

Strider is correct, you can download the ISO file from Microsoft here

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

You'll need a bit of techy know how to install, get hold of all the drivers and get up and running. If your hard drive is goosed, try ebuyer for a new one.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I tried the link above but my windows is OEM not retailer purchased so it doesn't work.

I didn't make the boot discs unfortunately. Wouldn't know where to start with Linux, so that's probably a non starter.

aerostar

Restore your computer to its original ram configuration, and try that.

NiftyDigits

Everything that you need is in your Inbox. You are lucky. I just returned from my travels yesterday.

Fightsback

aerostar wrote: »

Restore your computer to its original ram configuration, and try that.

Good point about the RAM, I think those i3-330Ms only like low density memory.

@catwoman73 was the RAM you bought guaranteed to work with your model ?

You can check the required memory type here:

http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/systemscanner

J_B

NiftyDigits wrote: »

. I just returned from my travels yesterday.

Welcome back :beer:

IronWolf

Was it a SSD? If not, then i would recommend just buying a 250gb SSD, replacing the old HD, and doing a fresh install on that. The upgrade to SSD gives a huge speed boost so is worth the money even if the old hard drive can be repaired.

I just bought a 520gb SSD on amazon for about £150 so they are quite cheap now. I installed it myself from an online guide, its very easy.