New Hard Drive

  1. 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.
  2. I do this all the time.  I have done hundreds.  This is likely to take an elapsed time of around 12 hours.
  3. 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.
  4. From this point onward, I am providing you with the process to install Windows 7.
  5. 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.
  6. Install the new hard drive.
  7. Do not do any formatting or partitioning.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. Now follow the process listed under

    Rebuild — Windows Update (December, 2019)