I have seen all these discussions over and over. There must be 100 forum comments that error 146 is a Hard Drive explosion. Maybe it is. However, after my first "crash", I researched the forums and yes found out that my hard drive was going bad on my Dell. Since it was out of warranty, I purchased a new Seagate hard drive. After a new Vista installation which took days and days (drivers, updates, programs, etc), I was rewarded with another "hard drive error" failed smart test, 2000-146 error. Dang, my new Seagate hard drive is bad! Went back to Best Buy and exchanged it for free. OK, great now another new drive and another hour after hour reinstall. Guess what? You're right, another bad hard drive!!!!!!!!!! Another Best Buy free exchange and another reinstall and guess what? I'll give you one guess. YOU GUESSED IT!!! How is this possible, 3 new drives and all thee are y bad out of the box?
Time for something new. Once more Best Buy let me exchange but for a Western Digital instead of a Seagate. So now after another reinstall and hours upon hours of work you can probably guess the result. Glad I have a punching bag cause I won't have another Dell. There has got to be an underlying problem that causes these errors besides a Hard Drive but Dell won't admit to it. Sorry for my whinning but enough is enough.