Should I bin my laptop?

You can take it back to factory settings, which will clear every thing out that you have put in, if you do not feel you can do it, dell will do it remotely for a reasonable charge

You can copy anything important onto a memory stick first and then if you don't know how to do it grab a local teenager and they will be happy to do it for you!

Decluttering is time consuming just like decluttering your house, loft or garage, pretty much the same process if you have a fair amount you want to keep. If you have a lot of photos or videos they will be taking up the most memory.

I think it is worth trying to retrieve it rather than replacing it.

It really depends on what operation system it has.
If it is XP then be aware that Microsoft will stop supporting it in April. It is not that it won't work, it is just that they won't fix security faults any more.
If it is Vista, then it will be supported until 2017.

Copy your stuff off to memory stick, CD or DVD.

Keep taping the F8 key once the screen comes to life, you might have to be very quick. One of the option is to take it back to factory settings.

You don't say what part of the world you are in so I can't help with local tech. people.

I've just down loaded an expensive de-clutterer as my lap top was so slow. It worked brilliantly - I wish I'd waited for my 17 year old grandson to call though, I'm sure he'd have known how to do this without downloading expensive stuff

Thanks! I'm in the UK, eposmike. The OS is Vista.
I wisk I knew what programs are safe to uninstall - there's a long list and I don't know what half of them are for. My photos and docs are backed up to an external hard drive.
What's happening is I keep getting the "this programme is not responding" and the screen fades and I'm looking at a little blue circle that spins and spins finally I give up as too much time waiting for the darn thing to wake up. Grrrr.
I have run superantispyware and done the defrag thing but nothing has improved.
Maybe I need to get a man out...

mrsmopp I just had a new hard drive for very similar reasons. It's fine now!

Consider trying what eposmike suggests, I have done in in the past, it worked for me, If you come to the point of "I have nothing to lose", Save your stuff, and either go back to factory settings yourself , or get Dell to do it.

You can get a free programme called Ccleaner (the C is for Crap) downloaded from Tucows www.tucows.com/preview/365267/CCleaner?q=Ccleaner

Every so often (say once a week) you run this and it finds things that can be safely deleted - temporary files made while things are running which are not needed when you stop using them, lists of the websites you have visited, that kind of thing and tells you how much space it can free up. Then you select the ones for it to delete, set it going and it cleans up in seconds.

Thanks eposmike I grasped the nettle and did it.
It has worked! I ran the Dell diagnostic test first but nothing came of that.
I have also installed Ccleaner too - it looks very useful. Hopefully get a few more years out of my laptop now.
Thanks for helping!

Blimey this is technical stuff for 3am. Good morning .

Lol, Nellie!
Couldn't sleep
Worrying about my laptop!

mrsmopp I think you said it was a Dell, They will sort it remotely for you if you are still having problems, They do charge but it is much cheaper than having to buy a new one. as long as you put all you want to save on a memory stick. Give them a ring, they will tell you the options, its not worth losing sleep over it

I have also found a lot of the problems were caused by Firefox either not responding or crashing. Resetting Firefox has helped with that problem. Its all updated now. Will see how it goes and I have Dell's phone number if I need it. whew.....