Toshiba America, Inc. New laptop hard drive failed due to manufacture defect, Toshiba made me purchase recovery disk. Irvine, California

I purchased a brand new Toshiba Satellite laptop from Best Buy and within a month of the purchase, I started to get the blue screen error. The laptop would continuously restart and was basically useless. I took the laptop back to Best Buy to explain the problem. Their 14 day return policy had already passed so they took the laptop in to have it serviced by their "Geek Squad."

The events that transpired next were enough to set me over the edge. The laptop was sent to their "service center," which I'm assuming was Toshiba or authorized service center. The laptop was then sent back to my local store. The store contacted me and explained that they needed the recovery disks in order to finish the repair. I explained to them that there were no additional media disks included in the package. I was directed to contact Toshiba directly to obtain the recovery disks.

I contacted Toshiba, explained my dilemma to an agent that didn't speak English very well. He explained that the hard drive contained a hidden partition to recover the operating system and that no additional media was needed. A case number was generated for this service call.

I then contacted my local Best Buy store to inform them of this and was told that the hard drive was replaced with a new one and that it did not contain any files.

I contacted Toshiba support again, explained my issue and another case number was generated. The service agent confirmed this issue to be correct and explained that I needed to access another Toshiba website to order the recovery disks. I then found out that I would need my credit card to pay the shipping and handling fee for the disks. I explained to the agent that I did not think it was fair to have to pay an additional charge for something that I already paid for and expected to work. I did nothing on my part for the hard drive to fail, it was a manufacture defect. The agent said he would have to transfer my call to a case manager for review. I was told they would contact me the following day.

I never received a call and proceeded to call in again. Same routine, explained my situation, another case number was generated and I was transfered to a case manager. I explained my situation and she said that she understood but I would still need to pay for the recovery media. She explained that when I first set-up the laptop, I was prompted to create the recovery disks. I explained to her that I did do that and due to the hard drive malfunction, only one disk was created. At the time, no error messages were given and I believed that I had completed the necessary steps. These disks were provided to the Best Buy service tech but I was told the disks were corrupted.

I ended up ordering and paying an additional fee to have the recovery disks shipped to me because this was the only solution that would get my laptop back to me.

Needless to say, it has been almost a month that I have not had the laptop in my possession and I never got more then a couple weeks out of the laptop from the time I bought it. I feel that I got the short end of the stick as I paid over $900 for the laptop and pretty much got the run around. All I want is my laptop back in my possession and working. Is that too much to ask after forking out over $900 of my hard earned money?

I have a Toshiba netbook that I really liked. I figured I would go with a Toshiba model laptop since their netbook was well built. I understand that for some instances, recovery media should incur an additional fee, but each separate problem should be handled on a case by case method. In my instance, I believe I was owed this since this is what I paid for. Is it too much to lose for Toshiba to cover the cost of the recovery media for someone that has been a Toshiba customer before? Or is the price of the media enough to lose a loyal customer?

Bottom line, I paid for a working laptop, the laptop is NOT working and sitting in service center waiting to be repaired. Did I get the product or performance that I expected when I agreed to purchase the laptop? Nope! Then why do I have to fork out additional money to have something that I already paid for?

Step up Toshiba, take care of your obligations and ensure that I get back the laptop in new working order the way I should have had in the beginning. I paid the money... but I have no laptop in possession.