I had my laptop repaired back in September, for a motherboard/GPU failure. At the time, they offered me a 120 dollar extended warranty pack... I figured, since they were doing the repair as a warranty repair anyway, I might as well take the offer, since once this model of notebook died, it's often given to having other issues. I went ahead and picked it up.. the Hard drive is now in a pre-failure state... cost for a new Hard drive for this laptop, from HP? 425 bucks.. outrageous.... but.. for me.. free... the warranty just totally paid for itself.