Yes indeed, the so called "craptop" made by Toshiba has a bad hard drive. The funny thing was that I acutally tried using tech support, and boy what a competent person was on the other line. First, she was hispanic, which isn't bad, but it helps when I can actually understand what the person on the other side is saying. Instead of "What seems to be the problem sir?" I get a "Cual es el problemo?" And after I said "The hard drive is making a grinding noise, the discs on it are bad, I need a new one", the reply I get is "Have you tried using to system restore CD?", to which my reply was "The hard drive is bad, it is defective, poorly produced". This is when the tech support lady said "Drive? The system restore CD has the install for many drivers." At that point, if I could reach across the phone line and slap the person on the other end, I would have.
Oh well, at least I found out that CompUSA in fairlawn, which is a half hour of gas that I don't want to use, will repair Toshiba products under warranty. The funny thing is that I found this out online and not from the tech support lady.
Sometimes you just can't win.