What is wrong with my Acer Aspire 5100?

Oh man, that sucks! I'm really sorry you've gotten the run-around from these guys. Altho I do not work for GeekSquad I do a similar type job involving fixing people's PCs.

If they did what you say they did, they had no right to take and keep your old harddrive. It belongs to you. What MAY have happened is that it was so badly damaged that they either threw it out, or got themselves a free harddrive by sending it back to the original manufacturers (this is called an RMA) who send them a brand new replacement if it was less than 3 years old.

As far as your recovery disk goes, just borrow a Vista disk from anyone and use the key on the bottom of your laptop to install fresh. If your machine has 4 or more GB of RAM, you'll need to find a 64-bit version of a Vista disk. Otherwise, find a 32-bit version.

All Vista disks have all the different versions of Vista on the disks and the version it installs on your machine will be dictated by the 25 character Windows key on the bottom of your machine. But they don't have both 64 and 32 bit versions on one disk, just all the versions of one or the other, so keep that in mind. Whichever disk you use, your key will work on both 64 and 32 bit, but may not install the 64-bit version if you do not have at least 4gb of ram.

If you can't borrow a disk from someone you know, many independant computer stores will make a Windows disk for you for a small fee. It is not illegal to do this so long as they don't give you a key or if it is a version that does not need a key. It should need a key and you are supposed to provide it, not them.

It is the key that has value and not so much the media (disk).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.