A friend of mine owns an IBM Thinkpad, not sure which model, or the complete system specs. It has the "Designed for Windows XP" sticker on it, if that helps. He bought it about 2 years ago, used, at Computer Renaisance.
The problem is that about every 6 months, he will get the Bluscreen on boot up and will not be able to boot the laptop. He takes it to computer renaisance because he has a waarranty with them, and they either tell him its the hard drive, or windows (win2k) needs to be reinstalled. They charge $100 for the windows reinstall, but the hard drive is covered under his warranty. It seems to me though, that they keep using the same problems here as excuses. Can a software problem cause a physical hard drive to physically fail? OR, is there a bigger problem here than the hard drive/OS, that the shop is covering up?

i just realized this is in the wrong category.. sorry.. but still can anyone help?

Hi Teej, just noticed noone got back to you.

I've don't know anything about this computer shop (as i'm in a different country) maybe someone else can give you a better answer regardign that...


but yes - it is possible for software to cause complete failure of hard drives...some very nasty viruses have been known to do this.

That being said, if it happens every 6 months...it could be one or many, of many things.

Perhaps the ram in the laptop isn't that great? hard drive could be failing. Or there is a bad sector on the hard drive that gets used every 6 months.

I'd suggest finding out exactly what model it is, get the serial number (underneath near the battery), and contact IBM regarding this issue. They will be able to help over the phone or at least tell you a bit more about it then "your windows needs to be reinstalled".

Alot of "lazy" companies prefer just to format a computer instead of actually discovering what is wrong with the computer...in turn hiding the real cause and having it come back after a period of time.

Hi Teej, just wondering how you got on with this problem?