Reloading Windows 7 on replacement hard drive

Question

My Inspiron N7010 purchased in 2010 is out of warranty and some months ago the screen, after working intermittently, went black. I had a separate monitor which worked ok connected to the VGA port. Later on running Dell checks I received a warning that the hard disk needed replacement, although other utility software did not highlight any problems. Although I had three rescue dvd's foolishly I did not immediately replace the drive or make a system bootable recovery disk. The drive of course did then totally fail and I removed it for destruction anticipating the disposal of the laptop, buying in the meanwhile a Dell small desktop model 3646 (Windows 8.1) Looking now at the cost of replacement drives and screens it is perhaps worth fitting these and rebuilding the laptop, however I do not have Windows 7 disks to restore system to factory setup.  Any ideas here please. My pc's only receive minimal home use, which makes the Inspiron N7010 a particularly bad buying experience.

Mary G · Answer

See the posts in this forum about this-- like this one--

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3524/t/19601606

Laptops are really not worth rebuilding and spending any money on big repairs.

Graham NW · Answer

OK I take your point. It's just annoying and hard to accept that a computer should be consigned to the scrap heap after 3 years, with merely 5 or 6 hours use per week. Still such is our throw away society now. Thanks.

Philip_Yip · Answer

Looking now at the cost of replacement drives and screens it is perhaps worth fitting these and rebuilding the laptop, however I do not have Windows 7 disks to restore system to factory setup. Any ideas here please. My pc's only receive minimal home use, which makes the Inspiron N7010 a particularly bad buying experience.

Yes use a Windows 7 .iso from Digital River with the ABR program as instructed here: