Buy New Netbook or upgrade old Laptop

[Big Red11]

Okay so I have this HP Pavilion DV5000 that my sister's friend gave me because she couldn't get it working. I found out that it had a corrupt hard drive that needed replacing. I am just about to start attending The Ohio State University and I need to decide whether or not to upgrade this laptop or just buy a new netbook.
Laptop specs:
Mobile AMD Sempron M3300 (2.0-GHz)
Seagate 4200.2 60gb (corrupt)
2x256mb RAM DDR-333
15" Screen
6.60 lbs
6V battery with less than an hour of life on each charge left

To upgrade the RAM to 2gb worth of DDR-333 would be $60 and to add a new hard drive of Ultra-ATA is ~160gb is $60

Now I was looking at the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-V:
Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.6GHz
1GB DDR2 RAM, 1 x SODIMM Slot, 2GB Max; Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
Windows XP Home Operating System, Up to 8.5 Hours of Battery Life
10.1-inch WSVGA 1024x600 LCD Display
~$317

I am pulling this money from a loan from school. I have a powerful gaming desktop as well and the laptop would only be used for schoolwork and internet browsing. Portability is a factor as well. Which would be more worth it?

 

[lostandwandering]

I don't think that old HP is worth the money/time upgrading. It hardly has any battery life left and uses an out dated Sempron. You would also probably have to completely get rid of the RAM and replace it since the system most likely only takes 2 DIMMs. A Netbook is going to weigh a lot less and even on a 3 cell battery will probably get at least 2x the battery life.

 

[ampedal]

Go with the netbook....if you're using this mostly for school. They weigh less than most books - and you can do everything the same as a standard laptop.

For me it would be a no-brainer

You might even be able to sell your old laptop on ebay. Reformatting the drive and giving it a fresh install of windows is fairly painfree. If you found this forum, you will be able to find a walkthrough much easier.

 

[Big Red11]

You guys are probably right. It was a difficult decision because I would be using money I didn't really have. I'm trying to think of it as an investment into my future though. I can't sell the laptop because my mom seems to think that I should save it for my little sister. Also the problem with the hard drive isn't a data corruption, it's a problem with the physical disk. It is scratched or something, whatever causes the disk to fail diagnostic tests and fail to be wiped by derricks boot and nuke.

I'm aiming for a netbook now but I have no idea what netbook to get. The one i mentioned in my previous post was a quick search. I'm not sure what brand or model but I have a ~$300 limit.