What would you do?

I recently bought 2 Laptop computers from a very popular computer sales company here in Los Angeles where I reside, They are the same models, the HP zd8000us models, more specifically they are the model HP zd8215us. I dont know why HP names them differently but under the "blanket" name of "zd8000". Anyway I've had the computers for about 6 months now. About three months in, 1 of the computers would do this during boot up.. It would show the windows splash screen then the screen would go completely black. Nothing else would happen, it would stay at that point forever. Since the computer had a 1 year parts and labor warranty that came with buying the computer, and on top of that I then purchased a 1 year "extended" warranty. I did this just to make sure that the person the second laptop was for would not have any problems because he was going off to school for his 1st of four years right after high school, so i wanted to make sure that the computer would be the least of his worries. And would'nt you know it, the computer that went down was his. Luckily this was way before school so I thought we were safe. Being that it was under warranty, I took it to the store where it was bought from hoping they could fix it and return it quickly. They have a fully operational service and repair department, but because I bought the "extentended" warranty, the Factory as to look at it, and the time frame was 6 to 8 weeks. It would put me in a position where I would have to give him "my" computer and take this one after if was repaired by HP, so I just bit the bullet and sent it off. I waited the 8 weeks then returned to the store to pick it up after I was sent a Postcard saying it was repaired and ready for pickup. I went to the store to get it and was told "HP has sent this back saying your warranty is void because YOU have changed the hard drive" I then looked at the representative and asked him "Does it make since to you that i would buy 2 of these, paying cash, and going along with the salesmans advice buying the "extended" warranty even though it comes with a 1 year warranty already, and then when a problem arises try to work on it myself?" he then says it "out of there hands" I was so upset I was about to hit somebody, so I just asked for the store manager, and asked him what would he suggest I do. He said he would look into it and aked me to leave it and he would "personally" look into it. So after getting another post card in the mail about a month later saying the same thing, that the computer was fixed and ready to be picked up, I was REALLY upset when i got there and was told virtually the same speech about HP saying the hard drive was changed and they were not going to honor the warranty. I was so upset I just got the computer and took it home. Later that night I plugged it up and messed around with it, and to my surprise after pushing random keys, it booted up and ran perfectly.... I rebooted it and it would freeze right after the windows splash screen.... so I started at the top of the keyboard pushing one button at a time to see what made it boot. Well it turns out it was the "F1" key.... Seeing that he had put small scratches on the laptop, normal handling scratches nothing large, he decided that I should take mine back seeing that he was going to start school at a later date that what was originally planned, I said "Ok". His sat on his desk for about a week and one day, I went to turn it on to put it back on the wireless network, and to my surprise it booted right up without the "F1" key being pushed. Just to make sure it wasnt a fluke I rebooted it, and viola! it boots perfectly now and has been since. Now one day I turn on mine, and it does the SAME thing the other one was doing. I pressed the "F1" key and it boots right up. I checked to see if somehow the computers were switched but this was the right one, the one with no scratches. I do use Active S.M.A.R.T. and i ran it and I am getting the "Reallocated Sectors Count", saying the Hard drive is going to suffer an "Imminent Failure".. any help would be GREAT!!!!

 

I'm sorry its taken me so long to reply, Its really great to see that you took the time to read that post because it was a post the size of a novel, lol. but thanks for the reply and I'm gonna try all the things you recommended, the chkdsk and such. Oh yeah, why should I tuirn off S.M.A.R.T.?

 

This is "Unexplainable"..... I turned on the computer and it no longer gets the "Imminent Failure" hard drive msg now..... dont know whether to be happy or worried... it hasn't been giving me any problems even when I was getting that msg aside from having to hit the "F1" key to boot, but now just like the other one, it boots perfectly. This has me concerned... how can a drive be "bad" for months, then get back to perfect. I am totally stumped with this one.