Trying to salvage a parents laptop

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Crebs79

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Aug 3, 2013
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My parents currently have an older Dell Inspiron 1520 and the hard drive died on me while I was trying to do a system restore, it won't even recognize it now. I just swapped the hdd out of my Lenovo laptop for a ssd and I was wondering if its worth sticking that hdd into their Inspiron or spending a $100 on a 64gb ssd and installing a fresh copy of XP (if I put anything other than XP on it their heads will explode) on it. Is an ssd gonna make a noticable performance improvement on a laptop that old?

I had even considered getting them a Chromebook considering basically all they use it for is paying bills and Amazon but I have a feeling I'll regret that.
 
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englandr753
I personally would rather have the old laptop with a mechanical drive and XP vs that new laptop at 350.00. You can spend half that and get a new OS and an older gen SSD which would have a faster feel since you'll be using an SSD.

That new lappy has a mechanical drive.

They won't have as much drive storage with an SSD but from what you describe on their usage I'd say they will never fill the SSD.

I have an old HP media laptop with a single core cpu and 1 gig of ram and that would do what they want just fine. If my old laptop had a SATA port it wouldve already had an old gen SSD installed!
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englandr753

englandr753

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The answer for your situation is yes and no.

"Operating system: If your laptop runs Windows XP, it's not as great plan to invest in an SSD. XP isn't well optimised for use with SSDs. Windows Vista is better, but Windows 7 is the best OS for SSDs as it supports TRIM which helps ensure your SSD's performance is maintained. Some SSD manufacturers include utilities which help overcome Vista's lack of TRIM support.
Hardware: Check that your laptop has a SATA hard disk. As a general rule, if your laptop was made in 2008 or later, it should have an internal SATA connector (see below) which is needed for modern SSDs."

With that said above, your laptop is 150mb SATA data transfer rate so don't go and buy the latest SATA III and expect to get those speeds. You can get a cheaper older gen SSD and it will be fine on that laptop. Get what's the best price/size you need and don't worry so much about the fastest SSD as that laptop wont utilize it.

Secondly, introduce them to Windows 7 if you install the SATA drive for the reason I posted above in quotation.

Here's a link to read more on it.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/laptop/3366618/how-upgrade-your-laptop-hard-disk-ssd/

If theres no way your going to install anything other than XP, then get yourself a good mechanical hard drive and don't look back.

That laptop is more than powerful enough to handle the tasks they do so I definitely wouldnt buy a chromebook.

Good luck!


 
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Crebs79

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My only thought with that idea is by the time I get them an ssd and a copy of windows 7 am I spending enough that I'd be further ahead to just buy them a new low-end laptop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314110

Certainly not top of the line specs but would suit their needs and I would think that would last them longer than upgrading their current system. Maybe I'm completely wrong and over thinking this though.
 
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englandr753

englandr753

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I personally would rather have the old laptop with a mechanical drive and XP vs that new laptop at 350.00. You can spend half that and get a new OS and an older gen SSD which would have a faster feel since you'll be using an SSD.

That new lappy has a mechanical drive.

They won't have as much drive storage with an SSD but from what you describe on their usage I'd say they will never fill the SSD.

I have an old HP media laptop with a single core cpu and 1 gig of ram and that would do what they want just fine. If my old laptop had a SATA port it wouldve already had an old gen SSD installed!
 
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Crebs79

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I have a product key for Win7 Home Premium I'd just need to make a boot disk. I'm assuming I should use Win 7 32bit? Am I going to run into a whole lot of compatibility issues with drivers?

Thank you for being so helpful with this!
 
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englandr753

englandr753

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From my experience, Windows 7 has a good base of generic drivers that will work with most hardware BUT there's always a possibility of a driver issue. I had a driver issue with my old HP laptop (much older than the one your working on) and I was able to overcome it. I don't quite remember what it was as it was a while back but if you do have an issue its a pretty small chance you won't be able to find a driver that will work. That laptops last OS supported was Vista and the last OS supported on mine was XP and I'm running windows 7.

I can't guarantee it will be 100% problem free but if you have the cd key I think it's worth a spin. The question is, are you going mechanical or SSD?

If mechanical then if you have a problem and have to revert back to XP, then theres no love lost. You will be fine.

The SSD won't bode well with XP so it will be more critical you get windows 7 to work.

Judging by the thread on dells website, I'd say yes, it can work using vista 32 bit drivers on the two items you potentially may have an issue with:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19301627/19578646.aspx

I'd give it a spin!
 
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Crebs79

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I'm gonna go ssd and hope I don't hit any major snags. Thanks a ton for talking me through this!
 
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