Standard procedure for all major companies on laptop/notebook repairs is to send in with the Hard Drive Removed, unless the repair is the drive itself.
They should have informed you of this.
Nope...the supervisor I spoke to when I initially opened the repair ticket specifically said to just remove the battery. Also the documentation that came in the RMA box has nothing about removing the harddrive:
"1. Back up your data. Notebooks returned to HP repair are subject to a system restore which will re-install the original operating system, software and drivers to the hard drive, erasing the files and content currently on your drive. ...
2. Remove or provide your Operating System login password....
4. Place the notebook...
Do not remove any components fron within the notebook before shipping (hard drive, memory, etc) External parts and accessories should not be sent."
Just edited for brevitys sake. I spoke to Customer Service, and they escalated the "incident". I should be getting a call within 48 hours. He did say that the initial supervisor should have told me to remove the hard drive, but I did mention the insert that i just quoted from. Just after thinking some more on what the CS said last night, he did mention that the 1st tech I spoke to should have told me that I should have sent in the laptop in its original configuration...so...I'll give him that much.
So, I'm not sure how they will resolve this issue, and personally, I think, it's not that big a deal. Like I said, I don't really use the laptop all that much. I'll be interested to see what they will suggest.