Is There A Way To Determine If Hard Drive Is Original To Computer?

I'm trying to help a friend with his laptop since he isn't too tech savvy. It's an HP 15-ay009dx laptop. I think it has Windows 10 on it but not 100% sure since it the hard drive is toast and I didn't ask when I picked it up. He told me that Windows wasn't booting so he took it to some little computer repair shop around here. He says they told him that hard drive was toast and they couldn't recover any files either. They then supposedly put a new hard drive in the laptop along with Windows. I am questioning whether they actual did or not because here it is just a couple weeks later and it just has a blank screen with a blinking cursor. I ran the quick hard drive test which was part of HP Diagnostics in the BIOS menu which failed and gave an error which implied the hard drive needs to be replaced.
So after that long story (sorry) I am wondering if there is a way to determine if this shop actually replaced the hard drive? Any serial #'s that could match up to what was put into laptop originally or something? I did notice that when I opened up the laptop the hard drive didn't have any screws holding it down which suggests they definitely opened the computer and forgot a step. And I'm sure a shaky hard drive not screwed down certainly won't help with it's longevity. But was the hard drive actually replaced? It's still a 1.0TB but the date on it says september 18 2011. Any identifiers?

 

The date on the drive is rather telltale. Looking at the software page, the list does not show any software before 2016. However, the CPU was launched in the third quarter of 2015. On those notes, I would wager that this "shop" installed a "pull", a.k.a. an old drive they had lying around.

I wouldn't pay them a dime for anything other than a used hard drive.

 

P.S. You can try contacting HP directly and provide the unit's serial number to obtain the original configuration.

http://partsurfer.hp.com/

 

Thank you, themekanic! I was thinking the same thing about the hard drive. I'll have my friend go back to the sketchy repair shop and attempt to get some money back and I will see if HP can provide original config as well.

 

For sure, many drive makers put the manufacturers date on the drive so a quick visual inspection may help there. But if no date, most drive makers let you check warranty information by entering the serial number in their website. The results should give a clue as to when it was made.