Thank you! Ideally getting a new hard drive would be optimal, however it is something I cannot afford at the present time. 

You should at least run a full diagnostic on the drive (F12 at powerup) -- it may save you a few days worth of installing and configuring Windows and updates.

If the drive fails the diagnostic, there's no point reloading Windows until you replace it.

Then you will be repeating this all over again very soon since your hard drive is dying.

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Yes, I have done so before wasting time. It also turns out my roommate had “borrowed“ my computer and it was his doing. No drive failures or anything wrong with it.