After dealing with 3 different hp techs via online chat, we finally confirmed via BIOS that the hard drive in our son's computer went bad. We were having problems with a comctl32.dll file, ran the hard drive test in PC Doctor and got the dreaded HD521-2W error code. Bought in 12/2006 at Best Buy. It's an hp a1630n with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. I believe the hard drive is/was a Samsung SP2504C (SP2504), 250 GB. The computer is no longer under warranty; and we didn't buy an extended warranty.

The last hp tech told me that I could buy the same hard drive from hp for about $120, and that I could buy the recovery disks with the same operating system program for another $15-20, so the computer could get back to the way it was pre-failure. But, if I bought a different hard drive (let's say I upgraded to 500GB), the recovery disks wouldn't work so I would have to buy the OS (Windows XP Media center Edition). Before making a decision, I have several questions that I started asking my self, and was hoping maybe you all could offer your expert advice?

1. Is the Samsung SP2504C a reputable hard drive? Is it worth buying the same thing?
2. If this hard drive sucks, why would I want another one and run into the same problem again?
3. My son mainly uses his computer for gaming (WoW, COD4, Command & Conquer, etc.). Is it worth getting the same thing, or should we switch to a better hard drive?
4. He is entering high school, so I assume he may be doing more "office" related work on his computer (reports, homework, etc.) in the upcoming year. Instead of buying another version of Windows XP Media Center, I already bought/have (from a while ago) Windows XP, SP1 which was bought for our old computer as an upgrade to Windows Me. Would this suffice?

Any advice you can offer would be most appreciated.