Pat Fanning of Aurora, Colorado, was un­­able to start up her Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop. During a tech support call, a Dell technician told her that the hard drive was damaged, so she ordered a new one (the machine was out of warranty). Fanning checked her order status regularly online, only to see the estimated arrival date pushed back repeatedly.

She called Dell numerous times, sent e-mail messages, and spoke with various customer service representatives, but all she was told was that the drive was "in production"-for six months. Thoroughly frustrated, Fanning asked us for help.

After we contacted Dell, a company representative not only shipped Fanning the new hard drive at no cost but also refunded the support-call fee.

Hewlett-Packard, in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, is recalling about 54,000 lithium ion batteries used in assorted HP and Compaq laptop PCs (Hp has posted a ). In May 2009, HP recalled 70,000 notebook PC batteries; since then, the company has received 38 additional reports of batteries that overheated and ruptured, resulting in 11 minor injuries and 31 instances of minor property damage.