Satelline A505-S6005

To make the biggest boost in performance, is swap out the 500G sata drive for a 500G SSD
Check with Toshiba first to make sure the SSD will run in that laptop too.
satellite_A505-S6005.pdf

FYI - Virus is not the issue... it's been reinstalled... I guess I might just take my  SSD from my old desktop and put it in here.... Best suggetions for getting win7 installed on here with the OEM key and ALL?   can I use generic win7 install disc?

clone the disk, from the spinning rust to the ssd, many SSD manufacturers give you this utility. or boot from clonezilla and do it there
http://clonezilla.org/

Please give the exact hardware spec if your laptop, i.e. CPU, RAM, HDD, GPU before I can make you a recommendation.

A505-6005 is a preceise model number with exact specs I beleive.
http://www.cnet.com/products/toshiba-satellite-a505-s6005/specs/

(Except Im sure I upgraded the RAM to 8GB)

I bought a desktop once and tried to replace the System drive with an SSD.... used all manner of cloning software, including paid stuff and had all sorts of troubles.   I will probably never try to clone again.  Either way - I'd prefer fresh Win7 install... that's going to be faster than a year's old one.

And since I don't want to clone I want to install from disc, not recovery partition.

Can I not just use a generic install disc?  Isn't the OEM tied to hardware, not install disc you use?

But in your case, your OS is not stable and I am doubtful that you can burn one DVD.

Actually, the sales who sold your notebook should have advised you to burn one set of factory restore DVD as all branded PC will not be bundled with factory restore DVD since Windows Vista and the users are advised to burn their DVD as soon as they start to use the PC.

If you want to use OS other than windows, you need to have a spare SATA 2.5" HDD to do the OS installation and clone the OS of the HDD to SSD after completion of OS install.

I have stable high end desktop PC too :-)  I can do whatever is needed.... I really can't activate you think?  I don't mind calling microsoft to activate.  That's what I did when I had to install from scratch onto SSD in my desktop PC.... im 99% sure.... because I had fresh desktop after... not all the bloatware that comes with OEM version....

Agreed.

Unless that you have some legacy applications which will not work with win 10, clean install of win 10 to SSD is a good move.

MS will not entertain your request of activation as your OS is not retail or volume licence and their answer is to ask you to seek the help from the brand, but TOSHIBA will not and cannot help as you are not supposed to do a win 7 setup from non OEM setup media.

I am not saying that you cannot try but I am sure that your method will not work unless you have an unused product key for your generic win 7 setup media.

easy way, is to do what David said and clone the drive--all the other options are going to be time consuming trying to make old hardware usable again like new which isn't going to happen.

make sure you install the drivers for the SSD before you clone if possible too.

also, if you clone, you waste nothing:
1) you're going to buy an SSD anyway even with going the Windows 10 route.
2) you have 5 days until the free Windows 10 upgrade expires.

Cloning a failing HDD is prone to fail.

Your cloning experience confirmed the above.

 You need a clean install of the OS.

What is the brand and model of your SSD on hand?

Cloning my HDD to my Samsung SSD was quick, easy and painless using the software supplied by Samsung

Good and helpful comments.