will do.
Blah if this wasn't a laptop it'd be so much more simple....

HDDs for laptops are simple, but the problem is that it could be the connector for the HDD, in which case you don't want to try replacing it yourself unless you have experience doing so. It's most likely the HDD itself; since he was able to boot through ubuntu without any problems we know it's the HDD or it's connector, so the next step would be opening it, checking the connection (if it's fine, try using a different HDD if available) and reconnecting the HDD.