I'm buying a new laptop and It's stressing me out

Our laptop is about to die. We can't update the software so after tomorrow we won't be able to boot it up unless we buy a new version of windows XP.
As far as I'm concerned that would be like buying a new engine for a 17 year old car. A waste of time. The lap top constantly crashes, takes about 10 minutes to boot up and the back constantly falls over...It used to belong to Marks Dad in the war I think
Anyway we have to act fast or we're going to lose all our data which would just about kill me (all my pictures ).
We think we've found one at PC world which has £200 off it but I'm just so worried it's a waste of money. I've never had to buy anything like this before and it's a big commitment! Not to mention an expense we could just do without!
Anyhoo I'm sure we'll do fine...does anyone know how long these things usually last? We would buy a computer but we don't have the space for it.

Ooooh, exciting!! I love buying new tech!!

Basically, they will last as long as you take care of it! If you keep it updated, defragged etc, it will last a whole lot longer! Plus the odd format here or there doesn't go amiss!! (also allows you to keep up with keeping external copies of you files, pictures etc!)

You might want to also invest in an external hard drive, as this will save space and maintain speed of the lappy! Plus if you get into a situation like this again, you'll have no worries about keeping all your data!

If you do happen to lose the data (fingers crossed that you don't!) there are numerous programmes that you can use to access the memory without the need for Windows!

Originally Posted by Sar

Ooooh, exciting!! I love buying new tech!!

Basically, they will last as long as you take care of it! If you keep it updated, defragged etc, it will last a whole lot longer! Plus the odd format here or there doesn't go amiss!! (also allows you to keep up with keeping external copies of you files, pictures etc!)

You might want to also invest in an external hard drive, as this will save space and maintain speed of the lappy! Plus if you get into a situation like this again, you'll have no worries about keeping all your data!

If you do happen to lose the data (fingers crossed that you don't!) there are numerous programmes that you can use to access the memory without the need for Windows!

Click to expand...

We actually tried something last night to save the data. We put the old hard drive (we wiped everything off and started again when we got it) in our DVD writer and tried to copy everything onto that but it wouldn't work...

Lauren our sales guys use their laptops constantly, and like Sarah said if their looked after they'll last a lot longer.

PC World is where we got ours from as well

I know exactly what you mean about buying a laptop, it is a serious purchase! My fiance just bought me one last week. I signed up for classes full time and I guess he realized it was about time for me to have one Thank goodness he knows his stuff when it comes to computers. We were in the store for over an hour picking out the "right" one. Had he not been there I would have spent days researching to find the best one.

Originally Posted by Pombina

We actually tried something last night to save the data. We put the old hard drive (we wiped everything off and started again when we got it) in our DVD writer and tried to copy everything onto that but it wouldn't work...

Click to expand...

Agh, gutted!!

There are numerous online (free) sites where you can upload the data on your hard drive for ease of transferrence! I'll see if I can find any for you!! You can also use others to find lost data too!