I think the hard drive in my laptop is failing. I am wondering if I could buy a new hard drive for it and somehow copy the entire contents of the old failing one to the new one. I am not well-versed in tech so forgive me if I'm not wording this correctly.

Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 5720, Windows 7. Terrible noises coming from hard drive lately. Like I said in the title I'm a novice when it comes to computers so I was having trouble coming up with search terms to find out more about this. Is what I want to do even possible? Would Windows and all my files and programs be copied exactly? If this isn't possible, what do you recommend? I have programs that I wouldn't have any idea how to acquire again, that's the main reason why I don't just buy a new computer. Thank you in advance for any and all help.

Submitted March 31, 2018 at 12:30PM by liquidprotein https://ift.tt/2GY8v9Z