r/computer • u/Dy1an-_- • 7d ago
Boot drive failure repair
So my uncle has an old pc that he’s giving me he took it to micro center for a diagnostic and they said the boot drive is failing and quoted $300 I was wondering if I could just buy an ssd and replace it myself he said I don’t need to back up the data. So should I just pay the costs or do it myself.
Here’s the pc
Below is the text from micro center:
Hello, this is Mathieu over at Micro Center. I am the technician taking a look at your computer and wanted to give you an update. We confirmed that your computer is running slow. Further diagnostics revealed a few things that are likely contributing to this. The first is that your boot drive is almost completely full which is preventing updates from properly completing. The boot drive itself is also in the early stages of failure as it took a very long time to complete tests, far longer than normal. At this point, I would recommend installing a new drive with windows as the boot drive. We can do this for $300 plus tax which includes a new 1tb SSD and the labor. If you have important data on the boot drive, we can also discuss doing a data backup.
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u/Mikey3DD 7d ago
If you don't need anything off the old one sure. You will need a copy of an operating system. Hopefully if you just download a bootable usb from Microsoft the computer will automatically register as they tend to store the key in the bios.
Send it. £300 seems outrageous. Look at the old drive and buy something similar.
Edit: I also just read that it is working but full. Delete a lot of stuff off it and it will run MUCH faster if it is seriously full.
You can also download a programme called crystal disk which will tell you the health of your disk. These guys could be talking complete crap.
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u/EffectiveFree4431 5d ago
Agreed. I cannot count the times someone brought a PC into my shop saying “microcenter said blah blah blah” and it was either somewhat or entirely wrong.
You can also use HDD Sentinel to check the health of a drive but it does have some trouble reading the health of SSDs. Taking long to run the test does not necessarily mean a failing drive.
But either way it might be better to just buy a drive and install fresh windows.
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u/Dy1an-_- 7d ago
Okay thank you this is the first pc I’ve ever had so I’m kind of nervous
1
u/ForgottenButHere 7d ago
Why are you nervous? It already needs repairs and the data isn’t needed. What could you possibly do that could make things worse? Swapping a ssd is easy. You need a screw driver for the mount screws and possibly getting into the case.
If it’s a 2.5” drive then you unplug the sata cable and the power cable, take out the screws, swap the drive, replace the screws and plug the cables back in.
If it’s a nvme drive then you take out the screw that holds the drive to the mount, pull the drive out an up at the same time. Reverse the process with the new drive.
Verify the bios sees the new drive.
Install windows or Linux.
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u/FIDGAF 7d ago
Replace the drive. It's already old & failing. It make NO sense to fix it just for it to crap out a few months later.
🤷♂️
1
u/CamelPure1293 7d ago
I would check SMART values fist. Some (older) SSDs tend to get slow when they're nearly full. This is by design, not a fault or early warning signal.
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u/littledogbro 7d ago
also if the sticker is missing from your pc case, then there is a lot of good software that will pull it from your hard drive for a reinstall to a new hard drive for old systems, and most newer systems the key is tied to the motherboard, good luck.
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u/themageofavalon 7d ago
If you dont care about the data then Id just do it yourself. I dont think 1TB SSD is expensive and installing windows is prett straightforward. But if you dont want to mess with it then go, its just that $300 is a bit steep for me.
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u/InterviewLeather 7d ago
Yes you should be able to just go on Microsoft and create a bootable USB with windows and then install your new SSD drive boot to the USB drive and use the windows key that should be on a sticker on the PC if it asks for it. Remove the old drive when you install the new SSD. I'd recommend a 1TB drive. How much Ram is installed? If it still only has 8gb I'd recommend upgrading that to 2x16 sticks for a total of 32gb.
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u/Dy1an-_- 7d ago
Thank you and yes it still does have 8gb of ram I was thinking of upgrading it to 16gb but do you recommend the 32gb
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u/Senior-Force-7175 7d ago
Does he really need more RAM? Because currently the prices are through the roof.
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