HP ENVY x360 failing after 3 years

[SBPabloP]

My HP Envy x 360 15-aq267CL is failing now, just 3 years old. It was never First On Race Day with a non-solid state 1 TB, hard drive, but now it's unbearable. The last time I reinstalled the operating system I used the Cloud Option and completely erased all HD files, the most robust re-install I can imagine. But problems persist:

1) I was trying to get rid of the Fail to Come Back from Screen off syndrome. Note that this  not fail to wake up from sleep. I tried all of the popular solutions for that, but now I just never let the screen shut off (but I do allow sleep). This is a weak work around.

2) The system is S O  S L O W!. I mean slow to boot up, slow to relinquish full control, so to execute all things, slow, slow slow. I have installed absolutely no software, not even Chrome, just what comes with cloud  reinstall, and Office 365, but still it bogs down on all operations.

3) Got a Microsoft .NET error yesterday.

IDK folks, I've been specifying Lenovo Thinkpads for work and my personal setups for family, and those machines rock and roll. This thing is a failing, and only 3 years out of the box. Waste of $827 as far as I'm concerned.

Are these things worth fixing? Like what, a Solid State Drive maybe? Can it be swapped out?

[Anius]

The Hard drive is probably dying. I would test it with a temporary hard drive before committing to a buying a new one.

[SBPabloP]

Thanks for the input.

What sort of tests? I have an external USB drive, is that the sort of thing you are thinking about? Or something faster, like an external SSD.

And then, assume I replace the hard drive, how can I get windows back on there? I'm not certain I have the flash drive backup and it usually only lets you make one. I can't get to the cloud or anything else.

[Anius · Accepted solution]

replace hard drive temporarily ( Not external Since there is a chance  HDD cable might be bad ) with a known good drive and do a recovery ( If you have no means of recovery , just install windows using a standard microsoft windows ) .  see how it goes. If it works OK then replace hard drive with the one ure actually planning on using and do recovery again.

For Cloud recovery , see https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

[Philip1006]

Failing after 3 years! You should be so lucky. Try getting an HP Spectre 360 convertible. Mine has failed 3 times in 7 and a half months. Total nightmare.

[SBPabloP]

I installed a new 1TB SSD drive. Back to snappy now. I created a recovery thumb drive, booted off of that and reinstalled the OS. There were some bumps on the update path, but I used the Windows Update software and bulled through. 

Now I just need to replace the battery, which no longer holds a charge for very long.