Is it time for a new computer?

Xnitro67

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Nov 7, 2013
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I know that we don't want to but I'm having problems. My mother computer had a virus 360 total security and tried to uninstall it just turns off screen make pc not work. So reinstalled windows and while installing drivers screen freezes and has red stuff restarted it and now it worked for a while but while doing windows update pc froze I waited a little nothing so restart now it won't go into windows and says put in windows disc go into recovery well it won't go into the installation screen to get to that. So I'm at a loss here please help.
 
I can give you a list of trouble-shooting steps to take, but if you want try something on a swag (scientific wild-assed guess), I would pull the HDD, connect it to another PC (as a secondary drive, not as boot drive) and run a health check on it. I like Sea Tools but there are several other options:

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/

If it checks out, then you can move on to other system checks. If it fails, you may need a new HDD.
 

Xnitro67

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Nov 7, 2013
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I'll go do that I have other hard drives but they are at least 3 or more years old. All she does is Web browsing and Facebook and email. If it is the hard drive I was thinking of a small ssd like 64gb lol
 


That would seem to be pretty conclusive:) Hopefully there wasn't anything important on it. You should be able to use the same Windows activation key with a clean install of the same version on a replacement drive. If it won't do it online, you can call Microsoft and get them to deactivate and reactivate it so it will work.
 
Your call - an SSD will definitely boot faster and decrease file transfer speeds, but if she's not a power user I would just use an HDD. You can get a lot more capacity for the same price, and most people don't really NEED lightning fast boots. If you have any unused USB thumbdrives laying around, you can plug one or more of those in to her system and use the Windows ReadyBoost feature to give it a little more pep.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/readyboost
 
I believe it has SATA I connectors, but they might be SATA II. SATA III (6 Gbits/s) drives are backwards compatible so it won't matter as far as compatibility is concerned. A SATA III will work fine, it'll just be limited in transfer speeds to the mobo's specced limit.
 
Please slow down and fill me in on what you've done so far and what is currently connected to where and what's installed on what. I can't see your computer so you have to give me a good verbal picture of what's happening, otherwise I have no context to help me understand.