Save a computer's life?

[Musicmaker384]

Hello all,
I have a 7-year old computer at home that runs Windows XP. I don't use it anymore; my dad likes to use it just to play solitaire and to check his email once in a while. However, he says that the hard drive is making weird noises, and he thinks it's about to die. If I installed Ubuntu on it, would it save the computer's life? And what would be the best method of installation, download or a boot disk? If possible, I'd like to completely remove Windows XP from the hard drive and make Ubuntu the primary OS. What would be the best way to do this?

[Enigmapond]

If the HDD is failing, no OS in the world can save it. I would just get a new or re-furbished one.

[MAFoElffen]

Hello all,
I have a 7-year old computer at home that runs Windows XP. I don't use it anymore; my dad likes to use it just to play solitaire and to check his email once in a while. However, he says that the hard drive is making weird noises, and he thinks it's about to die. If I installed Ubuntu on it, would it save the computer's life? And what would be the best method of installation, download or a boot disk? If possible, I'd like to completely remove Windows XP from the hard drive and make Ubuntu the primary OS. What would be the best way to do this?
Yes it would-- but probably not with that hard disk. That hard disk may be okay, and the noise comeing from it being that that disk is almost full and swapping heavily, but that would be a comeplete guess and only a good fitness test would tell you if it is good or not... or the "type" of noise it's making...

Let me give you a low/no cost option for you to give to your father...

Look in the phonebook or online directory for "computer or electronics recyclers". I use these places as parts for low cost repairs and building computers for low-income/income challenged people. Rule of thumb, is that these places charge $1 per 10GB for PATA HDD's. I partner with one of these places, which believes that any hard disk under 20GB is scrap and not worth "reselling" or installing into their recycled computers.

They give me 10GB HDD's for free. I use them for testing pre-releases of distro's and configurations issues. I also use these hard disks for low cost/low footprint Boxes, I setup an 8-9GB ext4 partition with a 1-2GB swap partition, a clean install of Ubuntu and there you are-- usually breathing new life and performance into an older machine that "never" ran as fast as it does now.

Your only cost there would be free to $1, depending how fast you talk and how sincere you come across. Sincerity does still go along way these days. The only issue that may cost you, is for a memory upgrade, which these places are also a good resource for older memory chips.