I am still limping along on this Toshiba Satellite A505-s6980. Has 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, dual core Intel, 16" screen, long-life battery. First, it gave me a warning on imminent hard drive failure couple of weeks ago. Backed it up. I did this and that and about that time, I got a virus. Took me several days to get rid of that. I say get rid of it... not sure I got rid of it totally. It is functioning but upon bootup, it behaves normally and over the course of a day of heavy surfing, which I do continually, it slows to a crawl. Plus, it does weird stuff. Like starting programs that I did not start.

So, what to do. I can buy a 500GB HD for $85. I figure I would get a tech guy to help me. Install the new drive, copy the old stuff from the backup to it. Then, clean it up, removing a ton of stuff that came on here that I don't need and also trying to totally rid it of viruses and spyware. I guess that could cost $200. So, I'd be in for $285.

Or, buy a "new" refurbished one, same model, for $510. Still would have to transfer the contents of the backup to it and then clean it up.

Looks like similar, new computers would cost me $650 or more. What to do! I bought this one about 2.5 years ago.

Any thoughts?