Data Recovery Blog

Keeping on top of the latest tech can be an expensive endeavour, but whether we like it or not, the time will come for each of us to review whether our laptop is coming to the end of its life. It’s usually a big decision, too. Sure, it’s running slowly and it’s getting noisier, but do you have the money to buy a whole new one or would it be easier and cheaper to just repair and replace the components that have started failing? The different components in a laptop are famously more difficult to replace than in a desktop computer but with the right tools and a little patience you can soup your machine up until it’s good as new. Deciding which option is right for you should start off by identifying exactly what’s going wrong with your laptop in the first place.

My laptop is running slowly

Inside any device, the CPU and RAM are usually responsible for the speed. These components can always be upgraded to better, faster versions but it can be a difficult task to undertake in a laptop and if you open up your device and find they’re damaged or sub-par it can often be easier to simply replace the laptop. That being said, upgrading the memory is the far easier of the two and if you’re just looking for more memory you can often do this easily by opening up the bottom of the laptop.

Other, less invasive options should always be tried before you open up your device and get involved with the hardware. You can free up space by looking in your C Drive in Windows and deleting any large files you don’t need anymore but be careful not to remove anything that’s responsible for the core functions and running of your device.

Junk files can build up over time if caches aren’t regularly cleared and will act as a drain on space causing your hard drive to fill up quicker and making your programs work sluggishly. Clearing the cache and deleting temporary files can be a huge boost to your system if they’ve grown to use multiple gigabytes of data.

In the normal process of files and data being added and removed from your hard drive, the data becomes fragmented and read and write heads will slow down. You should regularly defrag your hard drive and there are many free tools online that can make the job straightforward and easy.

My hard drive doesn’t work

Replacing your hard drive can often be much easier and cheaper than buying a new laptop, but you should check if your hard drive can be repaired before you make any large decisions. There are resources available online for you to run tests on your hard drive and double-check.

It’s possible you might be receiving an error message that halts the regular boot process and can make your device appear to be broken and in need of replacement. The hard drive itself can be operating normally, but your laptop may be set up to boot to a flash drive each time it starts up, so you find you can’t access your files or operating system. If this isn’t your problem, and your hard drive is actually faulty, you should replace it with a new one and we can recover your personal data from your old drive regardless of how badly damaged it is.

My operating system is old

It’s always best to just update your current operating system and keep on top of the latest updates as they’re pushed. As long as you have the space on your hard drive and your laptop supports the upgrade, you can erase your old system and purchase the newer one and complete the upgrade easily. If your laptop can’t meet the basic requirements for the new operating system you you’re your heart set on, however, you might want to consider purchasing a new laptop completely.

Now you know some of the basic questions you should be asking yourself before you decide whether to replace aspects of your laptop or go out to your local store and buy a new one. What you should bear in mind before throwing out your old device is the importance of backing up your data to the cloud, which will make migrating all your files over to your new device much easier. If you’re getting a new laptop because the hard drive on your old one is broken, we can help repair it and recover your precious data – you can use our totally free diagnostic today for a quote.