12yr old laptop new ssd drive.

peter_the_piper

I have a 12 yr old laptop which has died because the hard drive died. A shop downloaded as much data as they could and installed on a new lappy. However I have the old one which was good apart from the knackered HD. Can I install an ssd drive into it or is it a waste of money. If you can how do I install windows as the hd is dead. I would hate to throw the old one away if its possible to recover it.

cx6

yes you can install a new ssd and download the latest windows 10 from msoft (burn to a bootable dvd or create a bootable usb stick) 

googler

I'm sure someone will be along to tell you to install some variant of Linux in a minute, but as cx6 said - go to MS's downloads pages, and download Windoze to a USB stick on the new machine, then plug that into the old one, having installed the SSD, to install there. 

Using the manufacturer's website (support/downloads pages) for the old one, download drivers for it so that you can install them once you have the SSD in. 

TELLIT01

Will a 12 year old laptop have the processing power to run Windows 10?

flashg67

I have a 2009 Toshiba laptop sat under my TV that I use for films ripped to ISO etc. I put in a small SSD with Win10 and it works fine for this purpose and browsing etc  but with max 4GB ram it does still feel slow by comparison to modern stuff

poppellerant

TELLIT01 said:

Will a 12 year old laptop have the processing power to run Windows 10?

I have a nearly 16 year old laptop which runs the 32-bit version of Windows 10 just fine.  That particular laptop sports a dual core CPU, 2 GB of RAM and an SSD drive.  Granted, it is only kept because it is useful for testing 32-bit images of Windows 10, but it still serves a purpose to this day for me.

Withbellson

peter_the_piper said:

I have a 12 yr old laptop which has died because the hard drive died. A shop downloaded as much data as they could and installed on a new lappy. However I have the old one which was good apart from the knackered HD. Can I install an ssd drive into it or is it a waste of money. If you can how do I install windows as the hd is dead. I would hate to throw the old one away if its possible to recover it.

Are we playing guess the laptop again?

peter_the_piper

Withbellson said:

peter_the_piper said:

I have a 12 yr old laptop which has died because the hard drive died. A shop downloaded as much data as they could and installed on a new lappy. However I have the old one which was good apart from the knackered HD. Can I install an ssd drive into it or is it a waste of money. If you can how do I install windows as the hd is dead. I would hate to throw the old one away if its possible to recover it.

Are we playing guess the laptop again? ::smile

Sorry????

Carrot007

peter_the_piper said:

I have a 12 yr old laptop which has died because the hard drive died. A shop downloaded as much data as they could and installed on a new lappy. However I have the old one which was good apart from the knackered HD. Can I install an ssd drive into it or is it a waste of money. If you can how do I install windows as the hd is dead. I would hate to throw the old one away if its possible to recover it.

At 12 years old the bnest place for it is the tip. Unless of course you know someone who could give you a crappy small SSD. But I guess not since you went to a computer shop. Bad idea all around I hope they did it for free when you bought a laptop. Otherwise just a waste on money. Oh you like wasting money? OK get a ssd for a 12 year old laptop.

If it is a classic maybe give it to someone who would appriciate it or if not TIP.

Carrot007

poppellerant said:

I have a nearly 16 year old laptop which runs the 32-bit version of Windows 10 just fine.  That particular laptop sports a dual core CPU, 2 GB of RAM and an SSD drive.  Granted, it is only kept because it is useful for testing 32-bit images of Windows 10, but it still serves a purpose to this day for me.

"just fine", for small values of just fine. Excapt for retro use I would say minimum 4 (real) cores. And also 8gb (if not 16gb) ram.

But then again you just use for testing so you would not know if it ran fine in everyday use would you?

As fort 32 bit images of windows. I wish from windows 8 they did not let you choose, 64 bit is you can run it, 32 bit if you can't. And should have stopped all that 32 bit with win 10. (or maybe earlier for both).

[Deleted User]

peter_the_piper said:

Withbellson said:

peter_the_piper said:

I have a 12 yr old laptop which has died because the hard drive died. A shop downloaded as much data as they could and installed on a new lappy. However I have the old one which was good apart from the knackered HD. Can I install an ssd drive into it or is it a waste of money. If you can how do I install windows as the hd is dead. I would hate to throw the old one away if its possible to recover it.

Are we playing guess the laptop again? ::smile

Sorry????

I think they were trying to asking you for the exact make / model / specification / original OS of the laptop you are considering recovering but it looks like auto correct messed up all their words.

Knowing that information is useful and also what you intend to use the 12 year old laptop for because that will help evaluate whether it is worth parting with your hard earned cash versus selling it for spares / recycling.

Some 12 year old laptops are perfectly capable of specific workloads and may be worth throwing £20 at them to bring them back to life. If it was a £2,000 Dell Alienware 6 core i7 2nd gen when new then go for it. If it was a £200 Compaq paving stone then maybe not.

You did say it was "good" in your opinion so may well be still worthwhile, but it may also end up a money pit when you realise that the 2GB RAM that was ok for Windows XP now isn't good enough for Windows 10 and you need a licence for a newer OS, and then discover the battery is no longer serviceable, the power pack is a bit frayed and the whole thing starts totting up to £100+ to upgrade and keep serviceable for example. At that point it is better to call it quits.

Anyway, more info about the laptop and I'm sure plenty of other tech forum people will chip in with some advice.