- The hard drive has failed. You will have to replace it. Replace with a 500 G or more rotating 7200rpm drive. 500G drives can be found for around $70. Typically quite easy to replace. Now you will need a complete Windows 7 install.
- I do this all the time. I have done hundreds. This is likely to take an elapsed time of around 12 hours.
- First go to your computer’s OEM support site and find and download the drivers for your computer and store them on a USB stick.
- From this point onward, I am providing you with the process to install Windows 7.
- You may be able to take your data off first. Remove the failing hard drive and put it into a USB external drive housing. Connect to a working PC, copy the data off. You may need a friend to do this part for you, but the rest is not really very technical or difficult for most people.
- Install the new hard drive.
- Do not do any formatting or partitioning.
- If you made a set of disks for recovery or an image copy at the time your computer was new. This is the time you need them.
- Start your computer on the first of the disks as instructed and in an hour or so, your computer will look exactly as it did then.
- If you do not have that set of disks. You will need a legal reusable Microsoft Product Key. You will need a Windows 7 install disk. The win7 disk must match the edition of your product key, and its bitness (32 or 64). If you do not have the original Windows 7 install disk, borrow one from a friend. Hopefully, the disk you use will be labeled SP1 (Service Pack 1), because that will save you an additional 4 hours or so.
- Now follow the process listed under
Rebuild — Windows Update (December, 2019)