Inspiron 6000 Hard Drive

It may work, but the BIOS will see it as a 137G drive - the 6000 doesn't have the INT13 interrupt support for large drives.

I did a Google search for this drive and found this. Western Digital 250GB 2.5" PATA/OEM Hard Drive WD2500BEVE. There were several reviews that suggested this drive worked well with their Dell Inspiron 6000. Hope this helps.

Hmm... I am not sure what that means. I know that Dell sells a 160GB for the Inspiron 6000 so I assumed it would see at least that much? 137G is an odd number - how is it factored?

One reason is that drives larger than 137 gig require 48bit LBA to be seen at their full size (it's a math thing and I don't remember all of it, but 137 is the magic number).  On many Intel chipsets that do not have native 48bit LBA you can use Intel's Application Accelorator to get around this limit.  The problem in your case is that Western Digital drives do not work with IAA 2.2.2 which is the latest one with Mobile Chipset Support (such as laptops).  You could use a Seagate, Hitachi, or other brand larger than 137 with it, but they are either non existant or at the very least extremely difficult to find these days.  One option is to install and format the drive as a 120gig drive or smaller, install windows on it, then create a second partition with the remaining space.  This normally works, but it isn't as reliable.   

A second problem is what version of Windows are you using.  Windows XP doesn't support drives larger than 137gig without SP1 or later.  If you have an original XP disk you would need to slipstream SP1, 2, or 3 onto the disk for Windows to see the full capacity of the drive.  Windows 2000 needs SP4 for drives larger than 137gig. 

There is a TON of info on the web about this issue.  A quick Google search will lead you to it as will a search of the Western Digital Knowledge Base. 

I just installed the Western Digital WD2500BEVE 250 GB "ATA/EIDE" hard drive in my Inspiron 6000.

Although the BIOS only recognizes 137 GB it is not problem providing certain steps taken. I'm sure there are different methods of solution but I will state steps I took. I wanted to keep the diagnostic partiition and not have to do complete reinstall. Previously, on my 80 gig drive, it had the diagnostic partition, plus I had replaced original O/S with retail version of XP pro then installed all the necessary downloadable drivers from Dell. I also had my C: drive partitioned for about 25 GB and the remaining approx 50 gigs were partitioned as D:

If you are satisfied with your current O/S and would like to keep all intact then you can do the following as I did. I used Norton Ghost to create a Ghost image of my diagnostic partition followed by an image of my C: system partition. The partition images had to be created via tcp/ip to another computer. I copied all the data from D: to another PC. Next, installed new 250 GB hard drive, booted from Norton Ghost Boot Floppy disk, then proceeded to Re-image new drive DIAGNOSTIC PARTITION FIRST and it would be as "Image to Disk" (although original diagnostic partition is only about 50 mb, the new defaults at 2 GB but not a problem). Next, I booted from XP pro CD and created and formatted as NTSF a new partition for C: system with size of 50 Gig which is plenty for System and within the 137 gb bios limit. (don't worry, later will partition remainder as D: drive). After C: partition formatted I interupted the install from CD and restarted with the Norton Ghost boot floppy and reimaged my system C: this time "from image to partition". When completed, restarted and allowed to boot from HD... seems like takes long time to boot, but it's finding new hard drive hardware then prompts to reboot. After rebooting, new hard drive is accepted and can go into "Start/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management" then select "Disk Management". You can then create and format remaining disk space as D:

Good Luck 

So how did this work out for you ? I am planning on installing the same hdd myself.

Do you have 137gb or do you have 250gb ?