"It's fair to say the drive appears to have failed.
If the system, is doing all you need in a timely manner then I would simply add a cheap M.2 drive and re-install Windows.
The SolidIGM M.2 drives (formerly Intel) are both faster than the current drive and no doubt much cheaper these days.
Once you are up and running, you can then decide if upgrading further is worth it.
You can't re-use the Nofan cooler these days but the PSU, case, sound card, 2.5" SSD, Wi-Fi card and even the RAM can all be re-used. You would however need a new DDR motherboard, processor and a suitable CPU cooler (though in that case, I suspect it would need to be fanned)."
Do I bother replacing the m.2 or go for one of those bigger format Samsung Enterprise drives instead and ignore m.2?
I don't think I've got install media for Win10 and clearly my current win10 USB stick doesn't work - presume I can try and build another USB installer that will work with either Win10 (do they still free upgrade to 11)?
@hippy
"It's fair to say the drive appears to have failed.
If the system, is doing all you need in a timely manner then I would simply add a cheap M.2 drive and re-install Windows.
The SolidIGM M.2 drives (formerly Intel) are both faster than the current drive and no doubt much cheaper these days.
Once you are up and running, you can then decide if upgrading further is worth it.
You can't re-use the Nofan cooler these days but the PSU, case, sound card, 2.5" SSD, Wi-Fi card and even the RAM can all be re-used. You would however need a new DDR motherboard, processor and a suitable CPU cooler (though in that case, I suspect it would need to be fanned)."
Do I bother replacing the m.2 or go for one of those bigger format Samsung Enterprise drives instead and ignore m.2?
I don't think I've got install media for Win10 and clearly my current win10 USB stick doesn't work - presume I can try and build another USB installer that will work with either Win10 (do they still free upgrade to 11)?