Laptop is very slow and freezes frequently

[Marybeth64]

I have an HP Pavilion notebook, model # 14AB166US, Product ID MIX96UA#ABA.  I have done the diagnostic tests.  Everything passed the quick test, but the hard drive failed the extensive test.  The Failure ID is GLUBW2-7RRANH-MFPWMF-61ER03.  The computer is very slow to boot and to load pages.  It freezes frequently.  I checked available disk space and I supposedly have 785 GB available.

Do I need a new hard drive?  Should I add more RAM? (I have 6 GB of RAM now).  Would I be better off to purchase a new laptop?

Thanks for your help.

Marybeth

[WAWood]

@Marybeth64 

Only you can decide if the cost and work of repair is less than buying a new laptop.

You would need to replace the drive and a 1TB laptop drive is around $50 most places.  But if you want to continue using the laptop for several more years, you should consider an SSD, and that would cost $80 or more for the same size drive.

I would not add more memory as that will not give you any noticeable performance gain.

Any new laptop with the same specs and features will run much more than that -- but  new one will almost certainly run Windows 11 when it comes out.  An older one probably will not.

[Marybeth64]

Is there a particular laptop hard drive I need to purchase, or are they generic?