walmart has 4gb flash drives for 20 bucks if you feel like going and finding one.
At school we have had to replace pretty much every dell laptop at least once. They all have lots of random failures. I just took mine back to computer services for a bad solder joint on the motherboard. I pretty much quit saving anything at all on it so when it dies again I won't have to deal with backups.
Dell used to be pretty solid but I guess it is their turn for a run of bad systems. I have been using my Asus EEE 901 while my work laptop is dead and I am not even sure if I am going to use it when I get it back.
We have a few other random brands and they all have been better than the dells for the last year or two. I would say sell it once your warranty runs out
