Fixing My Computer

I am writing this post from a resurrected computer for the first time in over a month. After four years of school, my reliable Dell decided that it had enough. Early in March, I began to notice my computer was acting up a little bit, and after hearing Mom's photo disaster (which turned out to be less severe in the end), I decided to buy an external hard drive to back up everything important.

So, as the computer was on its way out, I was somewhat prepared for its departure. However, after it had died, I did not realize how frustrating it really was to not have it. It is not that I was desperate for a computer - we have Kara's Dell laptop and our iPad - I just was frustrated that I couldn't use mine.

I took my computer to get a free diagnostic done, and the lady at the counter told me that my hard drive had failed. I asked her if they had hard drives there to sell, and she said yes. Then I asked her how much it would be for them to install one. She said it is $60-$80 for the hardware and $200 for the service. Hmmmm.....I might as well buy a new computer for that price. So, I decided to take my very limited computer knowledge and do it myself. I bought a new hard drive (with 2x the space as the original) online for around $50, looked at a few Google articles, and took the plunge.

Before the Operation

When my hard drive arrived in the mail, I was excited to get started. Kara was.....well, not nearly as excited as me but put up with my little hobby. Needless to say, I had computer parts, screws, and CDs everywhere for the adventure.

Out With the Old

In With the New

Since my Windows CDs were upgrades, I had to install XP, the Vista, then Windows 7 

In the end, I was successful and learned a lot. Hopefully, my computer will survive for a few more years!