[Goatherd1]

My Dell Inspiron 1525 hard drive died. I want to buy a used 40gb+ hard drive already loaded with an operating system and software for my machine. What hard drives/other Dell computers would be compatable?

[phillpower2]

Hi Goatherd 1
You won`t very often find a used HDD for sale that has not been formatted
so finding one that suits your requirements may be difficult.
You may have other options to assisst you with this, such as obtaining a
compatible HDD & then have a data transfer company transfer the data from
your damaged drive to the replacement (although this is not always possible).
Before you do any of this I would post the exact details of what happened
with the present hard drive, & what its present working condition is,there
may be another possible soloution, below are some comparable machines that
this particular hard drive is compatible with, there are a lot of other make
& specs available & this is only an example, hope this helps

Product Details:
NEW Samsung 100gb SATA Laptop Hard Drive 5400RPM

Compatible Laptops:

Inspiron - 1318, 1320, 1370, 1410, 1420, 1427, 1440, 1470, 1501, 1520, 1521, 1525, 1526, 1545, 1570, 1720, 1721, 1750, 640m, E1405, E1505, E1705, 9400, 6400 Mini 10, Mini 10v, Mini 11, Mini 12

[DaffyKantReed]

You want a 2.5" SATA hard drive for your laptop. 5400RPM models may last a bit longer and the 7200RPM models will be faster. You will then have to go about installing the operating system.

[123Runner]

Quote

I want to buy a used 40gb+ hard drive already loaded with an operating system and software for my machine.

The chance of finding an exact replacement that you would be able to install and turn right on without any problems would be slim to none.

All hardware and drivers on your main board would have to be exact to the one your "used" drive would come from. If not you will have tons of driver issues.
You are also getting into a grey area for the OS license. Depending on type of license, they are married to the computer.

You would be farther ahead with a new drive and then calling Dell to get some recovery disks for the computer.