Ok, well then that is a hardware issue and in order to fix it you would have to take apart the laptop, figure out which part of the system is failing, and then proceed accordingly. Not something a casual user is likely to be comfortable with.
Ok, turning it into an external drive would probably work. I've not done it with a laptop hard drive, but I've done it with a full size.To prepare for when it fully dies, I'm also looking into turning the old internal hard drive into an external one. I know how to physically do it, but would that work? Part of this is just not wanting to throw away a perfectly good hard drive.
Good to know; I'm going to ask some of my friends to see what they think but there's some decently priced listings on there. I figure I'd meet the person and speak in person before making a final decision, but the more knowledge I can get people to share with me, the better equipped I am to make a good decision.