Dell Inspiron 1525 Problems =(

[Phoenixlight]

Hello everyone, I seem to be having some problems with my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop computer. It has windows vista home as an operating system. For the past few weeks every now and then I would hear somthing inside the computer (just to the left hand side of the touch pad, the bottom left section of the laptop) start to make what seemed like a spinning noise.
The spinning noise would increase in spins until it just stopped altogether, but nothing would change in regards to whatever I was doing at the time. Now, since yesterday, after I've logged onto the laptop it seems to be unable to perfrom the most basic tasks without freezing and crashing After it's been frozen for a while the screen will either go black and say something about the security options not being able to be loaded or it will go to a blue screen saying something else. I've tried starting it in safe mode but it doesn't stop it from freezing and crashing.
For example If I went into my documents then tried to open a microsoft word file the cursor would change into the loading sign (blue circle) then at the top of the screen it would say: (Not Responding) and wouldn't respond to me clicking the red cross or pressing and holding Ctrl-Alt-Delete to try and use the task manager to see what's going on.
I scanned the computer a few days ago with commodo anti-virus software as a routine check and nothing came up so I don't think it's a virus.

If I've posted this in the wrong section I'm sorry. If you need any other information just let me know and I'll try and get it. And if you know what the problem might be or have a suggestion of what I should do I'd appreciate it if you could leave a reply.

 

[jombo]

Well for what it is worth the only thing you are going to hear spinning is either the optical drive or the HDD. And this to me sorta sounds like either you have a cd/dvd in the optical drive that isn't reading correctly (dirty or scratched) a bad drive or the HDD is starting to die. And this last option is I am sorry to say sounds like the one.

Did you try a defrag on the HDD? If the HDD is dieing it will surely fail doing a defrag. But from what you are saying it sounds like a drive failure to me.

 

[Phoenixlight]

There isn't any CD's/DVD's in the disc drive and I haven't tried defragmenting it yet but I'll try doing that. Is there any software that could be used to check to see if the HDD is failing?

 

[Phoenixlight]

I've tried to defragment it a few times but it keeps cutting out so I think it's the HDD

 

[aford10]

Start-->run-->type chkdsk /r

This will schedule a chkdsk scan for the next time you restart the laptop. It will scan and try to repair any hard drive errors.

 

[lotri]

It does sound like a hard drive problem. I'm not familiar with the Inspiron 1525 but you should be able to see where the hard drive is located within the computer. Just use the process of elimination between the following:

Optical Drive, CPU, RAM, fans, battery, hard drive