Vostro 3500 HDD issue

My Vostro 3500 was working really well after I upgraded it to 8 Gigs of RAM

For some reason, it was slow from this morning and I got an alert from Windows 7 something like "The hard drive seems to be have an issue/damaged. We strongly recommend that you backup your computer to avoid potential data loss".

Initially, the laptop won't boot up but after a few attempts, I was able to log into Windows but the computer is really slow.

So, I guess I need to replace my hard drive, right?

I've shortlisted these two drives:

Amazon.com: Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 500 GB SATA II 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 2.5 Inch Mobile Hard drive - WD5000BPKT: Electronics

Amazon.com: Western Digital 500 GB Scorpio Blue SATA 3 Gb/s 5400 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive - WD5000BPVT: Electronics

The WD Scorpio Black didn't appear under HDD upgrade options for this laptop at Dell.com/support. But it has gotten much better reviews than Scorpio Blue.

I'd highly appreciate any comments on this issue.

Many many thanks in advance!

 

Any 2.5" 9.5mm SATA notebook drive should work in the Vostro 3500. Just replace the drive and reinstall the OS from either your recovery discs or your Dell OS discs.

 

Thanks so much for mentioning 9.5mm!

I just ordered a WD Scorpio Black 9.5mm HDD..

Thanks for your time.