Primary hard disk drive 0 not found, again....

I was told to make a new thread out of this...

I have a Dell inspiron 600m, about 6 years old.. (yes, i know...)

I've been getting the "Primary hard disk drive 0 not found" error message recently, I have installed a new 7200rmp 100gb hd about a year ago, and I have 512mb of ram. Sometimes after the pc has been on the screen saver for a while, it just kind of does it on it's own...usually I can just turn it off, and it starts right back up as normal, but this morning I am only able to get on thru safe mode after many tries. The HD is installed correctly, as I am using it now, but it hasn't been able to boot up thru normal working mode since last night. I have seen the "blue screen" in the past, and I've reinstalled windows numerous times. In the BIOS, it said "None" for hard drive... Sometimes when the pc is trying to open a prog and gets stuck, it goes to the blue screen. I know the thing is old, but I'd also like to find out why it does this... any suggestions? Why wouldn't it recognize the hd?

 

Is there any reason why it would happen a year later?

 

I don't have a spare notebook hd laying around, I paid a pretty penny for this one... I have my original one, which lasted 5 years and isn't near the same quality as this one...

One thing I didn't mention is that my battery light flashes oranges... which I assume means that it doesn't hold a charge anymore...

 

where do i get a replacement?

 

interesting... i'll have to check that out...