Help me sort my laptop!

[Sea Chief]

Im running a tiny little Acer Aspire 1810T and the only thing that makes it acceptable speed wise is the new Samsung EVO SSD I popped it last year, its like a whole new machine. I hardily recommend using only SSDs in laptops and SSD at least for the boot / OS drive in all desktop systems.

the excellent Samsung 850 EVO drives are currently $67/$111/$167 for the 120, 250 and 500Gb models respectively

Thanks, but considerations of anything other than a basic or exact replacement of what she had I cant cope with ujnderstanding. I think I can source simply one similar- thats all I want to do. It hugely complicates if I have to even start thinking of the benfits or different systems and working of A, B, or C replacement alternatives of harddrives and especiuially operating systems- I cannot cope with all this info.

I just want a toshiba L450D 13X 100gb harddrive, or whatever gb it was (thats more than enough of a mouthful to consider as it is!). Plus windows 7. Nothing else but this.

Thabks so much for the replies chaps, SC

[g1]

Did you find your key? Then you can do this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...nload/windows7

[Sea Chief]

Did you find your key? Then you can do this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...nload/windows7

Hi g1. I have no idea what ISO files are, or how on earth you 'burn' something.. Ive never done this/ this old pc I dont suppose can, & the one I could -if I knew what the heck I was doing- cant.. because its the one broken.

Afaict, I just need the cd thing as Ive mentioned, or a usb thing: one of these with the recover windows 7 on. Ive yet to start helping my Ma take the house apart trying to locate it.. if indeed she has it, or if it was left from the install people.

Is the key the product key, which is the "license"? I see this on the base.

So I have this, & lets say I have a new HDD. I just need therefore unless Im mistaken (afaict as I cant understand burning or Linus what the dickens that is).. the cd or usb recover thing.

Can I buy either of these does anyone know?

[g1]

Yes the product key is the key.
Download the ISO onto a USB flash drive, then you will have the same thing as the "usb recover thing".

[DrGonz78]

If the computer is really old then check that there is an option in BIOS to be able to boot up from the USB drive. Older computers did not have this as a boot option but some did, better check it out. If not then you will need to burn a DVD to load the software from the ISO.

[Sea Chief]

If the computer is really old then check that there is an option in BIOS to be able to boot up from the USB drive. Older computers did not have this as a boot option but some did, better check it out. If not then you will need to burn a DVD to load the software from the ISO.

Hi Dr. But I dont undertsand a word of this. Which capoota are you referring to my XP dell (onto which in theory I poss could download from or onto, or whatever the dickens you would do, to get at the thing online from which to obtain the windows info from) or my Ma's 5 yr old toshiba? surely thats not 'really old'.

[Sea Chief]

Yes the product key is the key.
Download the ISO onto a USB flash drive, then you will have the same thing as the "usb recover thing".

Ok thats a plan & I undertsand the idea. And I can see the link (thank you for this) from which to do this task. But I dont know how to do it. Ive I think once only ever seen a 'usb flash' thing, but Ive never used one. How the heck I would put this in & where (IE I mean what capoota? if it doesnt work, and I assume my XP dell now 13 years old cant be of any use); then how I would download onto it... I have no idea at all.

[elipsey]

Ok thats a plan & I undertsand the idea. And I can see the link (thank you for this) from which to do this task. But I dont know how to do it. Ive I think once only ever seen a 'usb flash' thing, but Ive never used one. How the heck I would put this in & where (IE I mean what capoota? if it doesnt work, and I assume my XP dell now 13 years old cant be of any use); then how I would download onto it... I have no idea at all.

An ISO is a kind of file who's name ends with ".iso". This kind of file is for storing a copy of a DVD or CD. Sometimes if you don't want to mess with DVD's or CD's, you can just copy the file on to a USB flash drive.

A USB flash drive looks like this:


You plug them into a USB port. A USB port looks like this:


You can buy a USB drive at Walmart for 5 dollars... er, I mean at Tesco, for 5 quid. Make sure it holds at least 8 Gigabytes or so.

[Dave H]

You can buy a USB drive at Walmart for 5 dollars... er, I mean at Tesco, for 5 quid. Make sure it holds at least 8 Gigabytes or so.

Make that £6.50. I got a 16GB USB drive from Tesco the other day model TDK TF10.

SC you download the Windows7 ISO on yor XP machine then still on the XP machine transfer the ISO to the USB drive. Now plug the USB drive in the Toshiba laptop, re-boot and re-load Windows. You'll need the Windows product key. It's on the bottom of my ASUS netbook but not on my Toshiba. My Toshiba will boot from a USB. You may have to set the Toshiba BIOS to make it do that but I'm sure the real experts here can walk you through that and putting the ISO on the USB.

[big_teee]

https://www.facebook.com/masterincom...14665738666245
Use at own risk! :<)

[Sea Chief]

Make that £6.50. I got a 16GB USB drive from Tesco the other day model TDK TF10.

SC you download the Windows7 ISO on yor XP machine then still on the XP machine transfer the ISO to the USB drive. Now plug the USB drive in the Toshiba laptop, re-boot and re-load Windows. You'll need the Windows product key. It's on the bottom of my ASUS netbook but not on my Toshiba. My Toshiba will boot from a USB. You may have to set the Toshiba BIOS to make it do that but I'm sure the real experts here can walk you through that and putting the ISO on the USB.

Ok thanks elipsey- that sounds good/ seen those things before I think (but thought they were phone dongle things, like you see on the ear of some schmuck-dongle in tescos. A dongle-on-dongle).

Ok, so let me get this straight Dave H. I download the windows 7 stuff onto somewhere on this XP cpoota, using the product key from the toshiba (I may be able to do, but into which part of this & how I then get to it again is another matter). Then somehow (christ only knows how) find it again.. then teleport it onto the usb thing, with appropriate sorcery.

[Sea Chief]

https://www.facebook.com/masterincom...14665738666245
Use at own risk! :<)

what the cock/ my brains just gone overload- pls I cant deal with reams of spiel like this.

[big_teee]

They are keys for win7.
You could test your computer with one of those if you didn't have one.
A good way to test hardware.
If there's a will there's a way!

[Dave H]

Ok, so let me get this straight Dave H. I download the windows 7 stuff onto somewhere on this XP cpoota, using the product key from the toshiba (I may be able to do, but into which part of this & how I then get to it again is another matter). Then somehow (christ only knows how) find it again.. then teleport it onto the usb thing, with appropriate sorcery.

Yeah, that's basically it but I'm no expert. When I enter my product key it won't download the ISO because it says "Windows came pre-loaded and I should contact the manufacturer" or something similar I'm not sure how to get around that.

Going back to square one, are you sure it's the hardrive that's failed and not just Windows that's corrupted? I've had Windows fail a couple of times and I got it back by using the recovery CDs. You won't have recovery CDs for the Toshiba if it's newer than 2006 but it has a secret recovery partion on the harddrive. Instructions for using it are here - System Recovery

If it really is a harddrive failure, fit a new one and you could order recovery media from - here
Enter the Toshiba serial number (not the Windows product key). When I did it it said that a USB (I don't have a DVD drive) costs £42.90 but a DVD should be cheaper.

[Sea Chief]

Thanks for the System Recovery info.. but again its far too much for me to cope with/ I cant see the wood for the trees with so much info & I just get depressed, let alone making sense enough to make any use of even a line of it.

It was diagnosed as a HDD failure by a shop/ quoted £130 to fix.

I need to keep this a simple as humanly possible- this is what Im trying desperately to do: IE I need a usb thing > i need to put it into somewhere > I need to get the windows 7 onto it. Nothing else/ I just cant cope with reading or understanding or evaluating the differences between A, B, C types or systems or or.... just that to start.

Then I can try to enter it onto/ into the toshiba.

----------------------------------------------

Is the idea to put the usb thing into this XP cpoota > download the 7 onto that? Ive read that it needs alot (maybe 5 ish?) of Gb space.. this cpoota has not even 1Gb you see, so I cant see how I would get onto here > then onto a usb thing.

Or could I go to a lobrary and download it onto that > then somehow > onto the usb thing?

Im not clear ont he process/ what exactly Im doing with the physical side of things.