Issues is that even if I have my data backed up - my laptop is still pretty much unusable as after half an hour or so it will become unresponsive. If I were to replace the hard drive with a new one...

So I take it your suggesting the hard drive is likely to die soon? Are there any steps I can take to correct this/avoid it? Thanks.

For the past week or so my laptop has been freezing after about 20-30 mins of use. The freeze is unrecoverable and often the screen just goes black, and I have to switch it off and on using the power...

Trying to install a .jar program. At the installation path selection stage I get the message 'This directory can not be written! Please choose another directory!' when I try and proceed. (This is...