Hey thanks, Icemaster. . . though I made the decision, that the old files wern't worth the hassle.. . .just did a format/re-install.

You could give me a recomendation for ghosting software, though.

btw, the hard drive seemed to take the new formatting just fine. So how was the problem a mechanical one?

My memory is too slow(head not the box) for this one, sorry.
There was a pretty good shareware (worth buying) I tried before called "file recover"(I think this was the one) that found over half the missing files on a hard drive that crashed. If they haven't been written over it still might be worth trying out.

beeper, perhaps you missed my Dell rant some time ago. :D

Didn't want to re-hash an old rant. ;)

I use Norton Ghost, good options for backup.

It might not have been a mechanical issue, I've seen systems do some pretty weird things from time to time. I would give even odds though that if it happened once...

If I remember right, you should be able to go to Dell's support site (try this link...http://support.dell.com/filelib/Devices.aspx?Category=13&OS=WW1++&OSL=EN&SvcTag=&S ysID=INS_PNT_P4_8200) and download a hard drive diagnostic app that you can run after you get the system imaged. It should be able to give you some insight on the drives status.

I've seen drives fail for inexplicable reasons, overall they're usually pretty damn tough considering what we demand from them. That doesnt mean that they're not infallible though. Dell once had a technical publication that instructed technicians to hold a laptop appriximately 2 inches above the work surface, then drop it. This was to fix hard drives.

I kid you not.

Don't expect it to last long..sounds like how mine started before dying completely. If you go the Dell BBS there are hundreds of folks with the same problem (all p1ssed off) wityh that drive. Seems to be some sort of manufacturing problem that they fixed in the new drives.