Dell Inspiron Hard Drive Failure

[haygood]

I have a Dell Inspiron
It came with a Toshiba hard drive which has apparently crashed.

Warranty on the laptop expired 2 weeks ago.
I checked the Toshiba site and it said I had to go through Dell.
I'm trying to contact Dell to see if they honor manufactures hard drive warranties after the laptop warranty expires.

Looks like Toshiba has a 3 or 5 on this hard drive.

Am I just screwed? I can get another one for $50.

[Commander Wolf]

The point of an OEM drive is that Dell manages the warranty for the drive, not Toshiba. And Dell isn't going to warranty your drive since you're out of warranty. Just buy a new drive; you can use any SATA drive and they're cheap these days.

[Tsunade_Hime]

Ya just purchase a new hard drive. For 50 bucks you can get a 500 GB 5400 rpm drive these days on sale. You will need your recovery media or Dell disc to reinstall Windows.

[rmh24]

My situation is very similar. When I purchased my Dell Inspiron it was loaded with Windows Vista; the purchase also included an upgrade to Windows 7, which I installed (and currently running). I’m getting ready to replace my hard drive (disk failure) – do I need to install Vista first with the OS reinstall disk, or can I use the Windows 7 upgrade disk? Any info will be appreciated. Thanks.

Mark

Dell Inspiron 1545
Windows 7

[Tsunade_Hime]

You cannot just install Windows 7 upgrade without a pre-existing OS, your COA will not activate. Install Vista first (don't bother with drivers) and boot from Windows 7 disc.

[rmh24]

Thank you for your help...