SpinRite got the first 75% of the disk done in 30 minutes. The next 1% took it a solid week, and I got tired of waiting. I pulled the plug, dropped in the new hard drive, and restored the backup I'd made with Acronis True Image (said backup having generated thousands of errors in the Windows logs, and thus leading me to the need for SpinRite to hopefully rectify the old disk and allow for a better backup). Lo and behold, the computer booted up the first time and seemingly without any problems.

So... maybe I just got lucky. There were basically no bad blocks at all in the front 3/4 of the disk. Problems were a recent phenomenon, probably relating to disk usage touching the back quarter, where the bad blocks may have been all along with anybody noticing.

Hmmm. Now I just need to get my wife hooked into regularly backing up her system. I'd want something as painless as Time Machine (which is definitely *not* Acronis True Image). Vista's Shadow Copy business would be perfect, but I don't think this two year old laptop can handle Vista.