I have the tr3a and my hard drive went out, I was watching a vcd in India and all of a sudden the computer rebooted and kept giving me a error about system disk error, please reboot…and it just wouldnt do anything.

I called sony to find my warranty ran out about a week ago.  Man I am bummed about all this, and have been trying to figure out whats the best way to fix this problem.  I searched and see most people end up just sending the computer to Sony.  I have to admit…Sony computers, or let me say the hard drives they pick to use, seem to have a problem.  I also have a friend who incurred the same issue a few years back, and also I read many posts here about similar problems.

If anyone can give me good advice I would really appreciate it….since I have to replace the hard drive I would ulitmately like to get a larger drive, plus make any other upgrades that would be ideal.  The problem is I opened the computer up, but just couldnt get past taking disconnecting the parallel wire, and also I have no clue as to what I was doing.  :( 

All ideas and advice will be taken very considerately.