Bechet45

Thanks Hi RandyL Thanks for that. Some expert support goes a along way when dabbling at the edge of deep waters! I back-up every month onto two separate external hard drives using different software for each. And working files onto a flash drive every day or three. Computer-knickers round my ankles at a crash site is not an experience I want to repeat! Bechet45

Having updated my Dell Support Centre, I soon learned that my hard drive has two damaged sectors and that the hard drive "may' fail imminently. So two questions I'd like help with, please. Do two damaged sectors on a 500GB drive indicate imminent failure or simply that two sectors were damaged during a system crash or some-such and I need not worry - wait till there are two hundred and/or failure rate increases? The Dell site tells me that a 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 8MB 5400 RPM 2.5in Western Digital Scorpio Blue is compatible. I fancy a WD 500GB Scorpio Black 2.5in SATA-II 7200rpm 16MB - OEM. Seems both are SATA-300 but the Scorpio Black also says SATA-II. Is the Black compatible with my laptop? and will just slip into the hard drive bay? The 'OEM' also concerns me - what extra parts, cables, etc would I have to buy? The computer is out of warranty by a couple of months, of course. I had a new hard drive within a couple of months on buying the machine but it's been just fine since - apart from the two damaged sectors recently reported. Regards Bechet45