Death Of A Laptop. What To Do?

[WinnieTheKhwai]

It's all pretty close. It may be a bit lower, but the threat these days really isn't viruses or worms so much. I'd just pick something that's free and doesn't try to get in the way of what I'm doing all the time. Some products are completely insane in how important they think they are, impacting performance and sometimes seeming hell-bent on getting in between you and what you're trying to do.

[BradinAsia]

Don't want to be negative, but...

Wanting a PC to act like it's running XP is a bit like

asking a doctor for a prescription that'll give me all

the symptoms of malaria...

[beb]

Make sure you thoroughly wipe your hard drive from the previous computer if you have sensitive info (passwords, credit card, internet bank, etc.) on it, and plan to give it away/sell it.

(Merely formatting the hard drive is not enough. You need to use a tool that overwrites the old sectors several times. There are freeware ones, this is one: http://eraser.heidi.ie/ )

I saw a piece about a town in Africa that is the hub of old, discarded computers that somehow end up there I guess after having been sold for scrap. The first thing that is done with the computers is the drives are pulled and gleaned for data that can be used for nefarious purposes. The repeating theme of this piece was that wiping a hard drive, formatting it, all of that is ultimately never fully secure and basically if you want to make sure nobody can ever access your data, drill a hole through the drive.

Sure, that sounds excessive, but you're not going to get any money for a 9 year old computer so why not destroy it?

[jayceenik]

Make sure you thoroughly wipe your hard drive from the previous computer if you have sensitive info (passwords, credit card, internet bank, etc.) on it, and plan to give it away/sell it.

(Merely formatting the hard drive is not enough. You need to use a tool that overwrites the old sectors several times. There are freeware ones, this is one: http://eraser.heidi.ie/ )

Very important !!

Save ALL your data while the laptop is still working, erase all personal data and log out of all fb, hotmail and the like (so that nobody can access them without having to use your password).

A month ago one of my two desktop PC HP started to behave - mostly freeze randomly for up to a minute at a time.

I suspected HDD imminent failure and saved most of my data. Still total failure came quicker than I thought and before I had logged out of my fb and my ISP email account (and didn't erase the emails saved to PC).

I gave the PC away but I don't worry (too much) since the HDD is now useless and has to be replaced.

[WildChilli]

My first experience with computers in 2005 was xp and I learned to use computers with that on my first laptop later updated with a new laptop 2008 vista witch I was using till 2010 and the battery died a freind had always pushed for me to go to mac and I Finaly did in mid 2010

Best decision I ever made love it and wish I had started with mac from day 1

Agree xp was good vista sucked

mac book made it. All worth it

Battery life is just one lil detail worth mentioning

6- 10 hours surfing the net without charging battery is not a problem with my MacBook 15 inch 750GB HD

Good luck in your search of a windows based. That can match that

[NoshowJones]

You can set up Win 7 to almost xp alike.

But here you go :

http://www.sevenforu...ndows-7-xp.html

Also:

http://windows.micro...de-in-windows-7

For your next Notebook, these days there are lot's of 10-12k baht offers available. I mean 14 or even 15 inch models, not the eeepc or however they called.

Most of them performing better. than your 9 years old ever did. (I do assume, it wasn't a high end model)

Supercheap (I know it from Phuket, only. but think, it will be the same at your place) has a good range of notes. Many of them are even cheaper, as the 'Banana It' offers (p.ex.)

Almost all notes under 20k are coming with 'no' win 7, these days. But supercheap isn't charging for the 'no' windows. It's installed, already. Many other shops chargingt 4 or 5 hundred baht for this solution.

My wife just bought a brand new Samsung laptop for 7000 Baht in Phichit

[Saan]

Thanks everyone for your help. Much appreciated.

[rene123]

Thanks everyone for your help. Much appreciated.

Did you decided on a make and model?

I had Windows XP on my old laptop and I liked it, but the unit was not fast enough and had limited memory. I've only kept it because it runs a high end scanner and a few other assessories that the more recent Windows programs won't run. I bought my present Dell laptop a few years ago and it had VISTA installed which I disliked. BUt, I've grown to accept it's problems and can live with it. My big computer back in Canada has lots of memory and speed, and it has Windows 7 which is much better than VISTA, but still has a few problems. I've heard Windows 8 is an improvement, but there is a learning curve in getting used to it.

I may upgrade when I go back to Canada in a few months. Computers are much cheaper in North America when compared to Thailand.

I learned the hard way to always back up files. I am constantly doing so to an external hard drive but it's a time consuming job if I want to find the files again and not waste memory space.