Sony Support/Laptop Repair Nightmare

I have a Sony Vaio Z.

After about a year, the fan started to give out. I sent it back to Sony for a warranty repair. I removed my SSD (I had replaced the HD) for data privacy. The unit came back, with the fan fixed. I plugged the SSD back in, to find Windows looking -very- confused.

It looked like the motherboard was (silently) changed and more unfortunately, the replacement motherboard was defective; for even after reinstalling Windows, Windows could not see the audio chipset and power management thought an optical drive present.

Sony Support, upon my discovery of the problems, responded with and only with "we advise you to reinstall Windows". Reinstalling Windows, all applications and configuring the lot takes about a week, two weeks to get everything back in. It is a highly non-trivial piece of work, which *I* would have to do, because *Sony* screwed up the repair - the fact of which seemed to be of absolutely no interest or care to Sony.

In the end, after a protected, *profoundly* painful and absolutely pointless exchange of emails with Sony Support, with the responses cycling through inane, irrelevant, obsequous, meaningless and simply flat out incorrect, having reinstalled Windows and drivers and replicated the problem and having no alternative, I sent the unit once more back to Sony; this time, I blanked the SSD (it had a raw install of Windows plus drivers, nothing more) and left it in.

Today I received an email with a quote for the repair of 158 euros. The repair proposed being the replacement of a defective hard disk.

I presume the repair center has received absolutely no briefing about the nature of the problems with the unit, has opened it up, found an SSD, and decided the problem is the SSD and their proposal is a new Sony hard disk.

That seems to be the least unlikely course of events, but even *that* is mind-bogglingly stupid. Apparently the repair center tried to phone me, to authorize billing for the repair, but failed; and then didn't try to email me.

I have emailed Sony Support to try to resolve the communication problem and get the repair center to contact me so I can clue them in. I expect further problems, based on the SSD not being the original HD.

I am reaching the point where I have no hope that Sony *can* repair my laptop, which is to say, that they are incompetent to meet the warranty I purchased in buying the laptop.