First, I would check what the term of the warranty is. I recently had a non-working screen on my laptop. After a call to Dell Support, it turned out I had the three-year warranty only because it was a free upgrade from the normal one-year. Plus it doesn't hurt to call HP and just see what they can do.
If out of warranty, I would personally just buy a new laptop to replace a two year old one. If it was for a client, I would weigh their financial situation. If they were pretty broke, I would probably side with the repair option. If they could spare the $560, then I would suggest that.
Did you try booting with a Linux Mint Live CD? That could give a pretty good indication as to whether its a hardware problem. Plus, while there, you could go ahead and recover all their data if it is stable. If it is stable, then just install Mint or restore Vista.
First, I would check what the term of the warranty is. I recently had a non-working screen on my laptop. After a call to Dell Support, it turned out I had the three-year warranty only because it was a free upgrade from the normal one-year. Plus it doesn't hurt to call HP and just see what they can do.
If out of warranty, I would personally just buy a new laptop to replace a two year old one. If it was for a client, I would weigh their financial situation. If they were pretty broke, I would probably side with the repair option. If they could spare the $560, then I would suggest that.
Did you try booting with a Linux Mint Live CD? That could give a pretty good indication as to whether its a hardware problem. Plus, while there, you could go ahead and recover all their data if it is stable. If it is stable, then just install Mint or restore Vista.