DELL laptop slows done

Hi, ALL,
About 5-6 years ago I bought DELL laptop for my mother-in-law.
It was workiing fine up until last week when it started showing BSOD. The message on the BSOD said that I need to run chkdsk /f to fix the issue.
I tried to run the internal hardware diagnostics and it showed me that the hard drive failed with the error 0132.
I called DELL and requested the CD with the OS (WIndows Vista). After receiving the disks (for some unknown reason they sent me 2 disks - OS and drivers) I tried to revive the machine.
I boot up from the CD, get to the console and ran chkdsk /f. It did find couple of bad sectors which I assume is now marked as such and finished. Then I took out CD and rebooted.

Now when I did that the bootup procedure took approximately 3 times more than it used to. Moreover the laptop booted up into the completely clean user profile even though the old one was still there.
After I tried to reboot again it did the same thing: long wait time for OS to start and then booting up into the brand new profile. Moreover moving the mouse and starting the program is now takes a long time (probably because the profile is "gone").

Does this mean that this machine is a "goner"? Something I can do to at least improve the timing and restore the old profile?

Any help will be really appreciated.

Thank you.

 

You need to replace the hard drive. It is failing.

 

Hi, plodr,
I knew I will screw up.

The error was actually 0142, not 0132.

But yes, it looks that the HD will fail soon. Just need to save the machine for the time being.

Thank you.

 

Is the drive IDE, or SATA?

What is the make/model of the laptop?

 

the mekanik,
This is DELL Inspiron 1545 laptop.
Looking at the Device manager it is IDE/SATA device.

Thank you.

P.S.: I don't want to open the laptop yet.

 

You don't have to open the laptop at all to get to the hard drive.

Close the laptop after removing the power cord and battery and holding down the power button for one minute to discharge the laptop.

Once you've closed the laptop, turn it over so the hinge is facing you. On the left you'll see two screws about three inches apart that hold the hard drive caddy in place. Remove those two screws with a number one Philips screwdriver then slide the hard drive caddy out. Spread the sides of the caddy to release the hard drive. Then slide the plastic interface connector off of the hard drive. Reverse the process to install the new hard drive and reconnect the battery and power cord.

Of course, you'll need to re-install the OS, drivers and applications.

I've replaced the hard drive, graphics card, RAM modules, inverter board and flex cable on my Dell Precision M70. It helps a great deal to have the Service Manual in front of you when you're working on the computer. Go to the Dell Support site and enter the Service Tag number for the Inspiron. Then click on the Manuals button and then the Service Manual. It's in PDF format so, it can be printed out.

 

Hi,

I know how to exchange the HDD. ;-)
I was hoping to leave it in place for at least some time until it completely be burned.
There is nothing special about it, but my MIL and I, we don't have money to buy new hardware right now.

So I was hoping to return the machine back to her in a working condition with the old HDD.

Thank you.

 

The HD is failing and your problem will just get worse. The only way to fix it is to follow mdonah's recommendation and replace the HD.

 

I have a few laptop drives collecting dust, amongst other things. I just need to know the interface (SATA or IDE), and you can give one a new purpose if you'd like.

PM me...

 

The Inspiron 1545 uses SATA. I was checking on similar capacity (250GB) drives for it on ebay last night. But ONEEYEMAN said he and his Mother-in-Law couldn't afford to buy parts. So, hopefully, he'll PM you with the info you need. I see LauraR stepped in on the other PM issue.