The motherboard seems solid. You won't have any trouble getting that SSD installed—just plug in the SATA power cable from the PSU and the SATA data cable from the motherboard, and you're good to go. By the way, which processor are you running?
Regarding your current graphics card, if I were you, I'd try swapping it into another PC. If you run into the same issues over there, then at least you'll know for sure that the card is the culprit. 🙂
For an SSD, you should definitely check out the Links provided—I'd go with an Intel drive for $183 if you want to stick to the 120GB range, or just grab a Samsung for maybe fifty bucks more. Intel offers a 5-year warranty on their gear, whereas Samsung only gives you three years... though honestly, you really can't go wrong with either one.
As for the graphics card, if yours finally kicked the bucket, maybe try hunting on eBay? Look for something with a passive heatsink and a low profile—if you aren't planning on doing any serious gaming, you can usually find those pretty cheap.
What kind of motherboard are you running? Give me the manufacturer and the specific model...
As for the software... I'm honestly not sure what to tell you—the program is being a total pain and keeps throwing an error right when I try to launch it..
If you're seeing a "BAD" status—basically that red warning light—my honest advice is to just go ahead and pick up a new drive. Honestly, they aren't exactly breaking the bank these days, right? Besides, if you wait, that drive is just going to keep degrading every single day—those bad sectors tend to multiply until the whole thing just gives up on you entirely. My suggestion? Grab a fresh one, and while you're at it, pull that graphics card out and give it a good dusting. You might even want to take it apart to swap out the thermal paste while you've got it out of the case...
To kick things off, go ahead and grab CrystalDiskInfo and get it installed. Once that's done, you'll be able to see exactly what kind of shape your hard drive is in...
A blue status means everything is looking good—your drive is healthy...
Yellow means there are some issues cropping up (it should actually tell you exactly what's going wrong)
If you see red, though, your drive is basically in total meltdown mode. You really need to back up all your important files immediately and start looking for a replacement...
By the way, what kind of graphics card are you running? And when was the last time you actually blew the dust out of your PC? Anyway, let's focus on checking that hard drive first, and then we can go from there...
Why make things so much harder than they need to be by messing around with a Hiren's Boot CD? Honestly, just grab EaseUS Partition Master, install it, resize those partitions, and you're all set.
The real difference between an i5 4690k and the one you've got there is $3.25. (check out some tech forums) That one uses the 1150 socket—which is newer—so if I were in your shoes, I’d probably swap that i5 3570k for an i5 4690k paired with a Z97 motherboard. But honestly, since you're basically building a whole new PC from scratch anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to just go for the latest components currently hitting the market?
So, you pick up a computer or a laptop that comes with Windows already pre-installed... You just plug it in, hit the power button, and you're good to go. But, if you're looking at a listing and see FreeDOS mentioned next to the device, that basically means the machine is coming to you empty—no operating system included. In that case, you'll have to go out and grab Windows yourself and handle the installation.
Just jump into Disk Management like we discussed earlier... If you can see the drive listed there, there's a really good chance you'll be able to just wipe it and create a new partition.
That’s just campfire stories—if there's even any truth to it. Do you really think the police are going to run a single program and then just show up at someone's door? Honestly, there's no reason to worry...
Look, the police aren't going to kick down your door just because you're using a pirated version of Windows or Office—it’s not quite like that. But, if you haven't actually installed them yet, you'll just be stuck dealing with those constant, annoying pop-ups telling you to activate the software...
Honestly, you’re better off building the PC yourself—piece by piece. Just start a new thread under the desktop computers section, let us know what your budget looks like, and the guys will help you put together a solid list.
If you happen to be in Washington, D.C., we could always grab a coffee and I can help you get Windows installed... It’s such a shame to pay almost $267 when you could probably snag a version for about 7x less if you know where to look. Anyway, just shoot me a DM if you're interested 🙂
I'm running an i5 4670k with the integrated HD 4600 graphics, and I’ve tried playing some newer titles at a slightly higher resolution—keeping everything on the absolute lowest settings—and it actually ran relatively okay. But obviously, you can't really compare integrated graphics to having a dedicated PCIe card...
Regarding the choice between an i7 4790k and moving up to the newer x99 chipset with an i7 5820k—well, it really just depends on what you're planning to do with it. If you're primarily a gamer, I'd say stick with the 4790k, because if you want that x99 chipset, you're going to end up paying through the nose for it. I was just browsing Best Buy earlier...
i7 5820k = $996 the cheapest x99 board from ASRock is $600 and they only have one single sample of 16GB DDR4 RAM available for $933...
In my opinion, that's just a massive waste of cash if your main goal is gaming... and besides, where does that leave the rest of your build?
Honestly, you could easily grab an i7 4790k, a Z97 motherboard, 8 gigs of RAM, and then put that extra money toward a beast of a graphics card. That's a much better way to go—real "bang for your buck"—assuming we're talking about building a machine specifically for gaming, of course. 🙂