I didn't give in and refused to relent... when "dealing with" the manufacturer of my laptop that went haywire and with the store where the 'puter was bought.

Five days of "negotiating" - if it can be called that since I was accepting nothing less than replacement parts and the ability to do data recovery on my HD: The manufacturer had a supervisor of its supervisors call me.

No prob. whatsoever speaking with that person. She didn't have a lapse in understanding exactly what I relayed about the failure, the system errors, my suspicions, and what is needed to remedy the prob.

Next week, and at the manufacturer's expense, the replacement parts should arrive. Any hang-up? The supervisor gave her direct line and the case number.

After I created an emergency boot CD for VISTA, I can see that the files on the C drive are totally in-place.

A week from today, my machine should be up and running and my data recovered. And, it is no thanks to any of the drones who tried to convince me that data recovery is not possible without taking the machine to a third-party. I told them: I've done data recovery since the time I owned my first computer. Like, duh! I simply refused to pay for someone else to do what I am quite capable of doing, and I refused to overwrite the drive, which would make recovery more difficult.

I think the help-line people at computer companies simply know how to answer phones and use function keys. Every time I've had a prob. with a computer, the response has been consistent over the years: The data cannot be recovered without getting someone else to do it. Liars. As long as it's not corrupt, it merely requires a hard drive caddy, popping the "bad" drive and connecting it via USB to a functioning drive.

Anyway, I am glad that this should be over in about a week, but the manufacturer gives 30 days and asked that I wipe the malfunctioning drive, then use a pre-paid mailer to send it to the service dept. I'm cool with that.