Hi,

I've bought Inspiron 8100 for my daughter's college time back in 2002 (Tag 4F37611) -
warranty is over -
and it was Ok, but this year it works badly (we guess, it's when she does not turn it off
for several days - keeps on AC power):

Blue screen with the messages like "Boot sector is defective" or so -

I need to drive to the college, insert XP CD-ROM, boot from it and in Repair Console do

fixboot c:
checkdisk /r

It happened almost every month or even more often :(

I thought that it's some software problem and thus I replaced OS completely -
installed Windows XP Pro instead of original XP Home - no effect, same problem
same frequency

So my questions:

 - is it Hard Drive - just very bad sectors?

 - or is it some harddrive+cache writing stuff (BIOS,etc.)? When it's "On" for several
   days, cache functionality could cause such problems, right?

- or may be it's a fan - too much overheat and this is why it happens?
  Again, it looks like happening when laptop is "On" for several days - it's why I thought of
overheat

Should I arrange sending it for a repair (no centers in California)?

 

Thanks,

Paul