Operating system and other advice please

Rhino666

Hi


My main Dell 1545 laptop stopped booting into windows. I did a ram upgrade and turning the machine upside down to install the memory must have upset the Hard drive which started crashing whilst installing windows drivers. Tried everything available to recover but no success.


The drive is still readable from a caddy attached to another machine but chkdsk fails on it. Any advice as to a product that could have a chance of restoring the hard disk.


If this fails would be looking to reload the operating system - windows 7 and AVG but after 4 year without problems I may be out of touch with things. I guess windows 7 is still good but is AVG still the best free anti-virus software.


Thanks


Rob

poppellerant

Once a harddrive starts to fail, you should replace it as soon as possible. I would also try to run a memory test to make sure the memory isn't faulty and causing some errors.

tony6403

Rhino666 wrote: »

Hi


My main Dell 1545 laptop stopped booting into windows. I did a ram upgrade and turning the machine upside down to install the memory must have upset the Hard drive which started crashing whilst installing windows drivers. Tried everything available to recover but no success.


The drive is still readable from a caddy attached to another machine but chkdsk fails on it. Any advice as to a product that could have a chance of restoring the hard disk.


If this fails would be looking to reload the operating system - windows 7 and AVG but after 4 year without problems I may be out of touch with things. I guess windows 7 is still good but is AVG still the best free anti-virus software.


Thanks


Rob

Don't know about restoring your disk , but the staff in the IT Dept. at work told me not to use AVG as it slows a PC down too much. They said Avast was the best. Having installed it I can see that they are correct.

enfield_freddy

all (or most) anti virus programmes will slow your computer down as they do their job , choosing one that works , is intrusive and the correct price is a problem uncounted by many .


dependant on your needs I would (or could) suggest just buying a basic SSD drive and if you need to store hordes of piccis etc , buy a portable drive.


everyone has their own views on this , so wait for other thoughts

Rhino666

Thanks for the replies.
My computer seems very slow on the internet - ebay displays, etc - perhaps AVG responsible, I was blaming most everything else including plusnet:-) Lots of high memory usage messages and occasional need to drop the internet to clear slowness.
Memory was one of the checks I managed to run whilst trying to get my machine to boot into windows.
This would have seemed to be the problem - had not expected a hard disk failure to occur whilst upgrading the memory.
Disk is mainly readable - chkdsk stopped after a while showing 1024.


I was thinking of trying to restore the disk so that I could mirror it as have a duplicate hard disk. As there has been a problem with the Hard disk any possible solution likely to be temporary.


Windows 7 & Avast then

enfield_freddy

NO . do not try mirroring your disk (I think you are saying copy it) this is where your problems stem , windoze slows down as more and more junk files and additions to the registry are made.


I see that machine comes with either , 3g or 4g of memory and either a 250g or a 500g drive , a simple 120g SSD drive from amazon/ebay/etc etc would cost you below £35 , and increase the disk performance in bounds over the old one


I have not researched that model , but perhaps reloading win 7 , (with a SSD)then upgrade to win 10 (and register it) then a quick wipe out and load win 10 from scratch may give you a faster slimmer unit that might last you for a few more years

Rhino666

Thanks Freddy - thoroughly out of touch
I thought windows 10 was a problem but obviously its has now proven itself.
Not heard of solid state drives(SSD) before. Are they more reliable than the SATA drives.


Great advice which I will take.
New SSD(120GB) is enough for me assuming windows 10 not too much larger than 7 and Avast.
As you suggested will load 7 first, get the upgrade to 10, reformat the disc and then load 10 from scratch. Guess once 10 is loaded successfully I can burn a disc to reload operating system.

enfield_freddy

a SSD drive is full of printed circits at things that run fast , not discs that spin like a record player , and as such do not get damaged (as much) by being dropped.


a SSD will make your machine load faster and run quieted and cooler


scan/amazon etc all list them , a typical win 10 oinstall is smaller than a 7 or 8 install and has its own (reasonably good) AV by default


follow this link (save it) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 , once win 7 is loaded and registered , go to that link and do the upgrade , then check if the machine has been registered (for win 10) , go back and d/load the same proggy(upgrade) to a DVD or pendrive , and do a clean install having removed the old partitions


you may (at win 7 point) have to go to the manufacturers website and down load the win 7 drivers needed


if you object to win 10 , then wipe it out and just load win 7

esuhl

Rhino666 wrote: »

Not heard of solid state drives(SSD) before. Are they more reliable than the SATA drives.

SSD drives are more likely to fail catastrophically than standard HDDs. But, so long as you take regular backups, it's not a major problem.

enfield_freddy

esuhl wrote: »

SSD drives are more likely to fail catastrophically than standard HDDs. But, so long as you take regular backups, it's not a major problem.

so why mention it?


the op has had one drive fail , your comments are clearing him up immensely

Le_Kirk

esuhl wrote: »

SSD drives are more likely to fail catastrophically than standard HDDs. But, so long as you take regular backups, it's not a major problem.

I suppose you mean because you get no warning, given that there are no moving parts, it doesn't slow down, get hot, have sector errors etc. BUT SSD's have no moving parts so should be LESS prone to failure than HDD's - at least I hope so!