Shock: Windows files lost, laptop 'restored' to 7 Home Premium - help!

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Roger1
Roger1 Posts: 1,603 Forumite
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Long story short: I've lost my Windows files and my laptop has been restored to Windows 7 Home Premium. (It was previously Windows 7 with free upgrade to Windows 10.)

My friendly local computer man thinks he can find my files - I'm mainly interested in restoring Word and PDFs. I have hard copies of some of these but not all. The computer is 7 years old. I want to be prepared and would value advice on:
  1. should I buy an upgrade to W10 or just live on W7, which will be supported for another 2 years or so?
  2. should I just say great, but after 7 years, I should buy a new laptop and transfer the info if found (or start again if not)?

Many thanks.

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  • unforeseen
    unforeseen Posts: 7,283 Forumite
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    If it had been running Windows 10 then there will be an online licence already for it so you could just upgrade to win 10 or even do a clean install and it will pick up the licence.

    As for a 7 year old machine, I would suggest it is now a bit long in the tooth and could do with replacing with a newer one and transferring your data (and set up a backup strategy at the same time)
  • Roger1
    Roger1 Posts: 1,603 Forumite
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    Thanks, unforeseen. Good advice, including on backup strategy.

    I'm still not clear what happened. I had some help. We were looking for safe start on F4 and somehow ended up deleting. :( Anyway, once bitten, twice shy.
  • EveryWhere
    EveryWhere Posts: 3,249 Forumite
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    Roger1 wrote: »
    Thanks, unforeseen. Good advice, including on backup strategy.

    I'm still not clear what happened. I had some help. We were looking for safe start on F4 and somehow ended up deleting. :( Anyway, once bitten, twice shy.

    Actually the way forward is to simply remove the HDD from the laptop and replace it with a solid state drive.
    That way you cannot overwrite what is on the current drive. Any use of the laptop with the current drive within risks losing your data.
    You can put that an external caddy, costing around £4, further to running recovery software to recover your files.
    No need to hand the whole laptop over to your local computer man. In fact no need to hand your laptop over at all.


    Fitting the SSD drive to your current laptop will improve the performance considerably. Likely you won't want to purchase a new laptop, once you have experienced the improvement in performance. Solid State Drives cost as little as £20.

    What is the brand name and model number of your laptop?
    Seven years old is not old. Mine is nine years old and snappy to use, with the SSD fitted.
  • Kernel_Sanders
    Kernel_Sanders Posts: 3,617 Forumite
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    Your query is nothing to do with internet access and should be on the Techie Stuff board.
  • Roger1
    Roger1 Posts: 1,603 Forumite
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    EveryWhere wrote: »
    What is the brand name and model number of your laptop?
    Thanks, EveryWhere.

    Sorry, it’s not with me at the moment. (Yes, I know.)

    It’s a small Samsung and was a Which? Best Buy 7 years ago. I feel the need to retrieve it.
  • Roger1
    Roger1 Posts: 1,603 Forumite
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    Roger1 wrote: »
    It’s a small Samsung ...
    Samsung SF311.

    I'm delighted to report that the situation is much better than I had feared. Much of the data and files was indeed backed up and in any case, I have hard copies of most if not all of the material.

    I lost the W10 upgrade but won't bother to buy a new version. The potential cost will go towards a new model.

    Thanks again for MSEers' advice. :)
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