let's see...
I've got my laptop back.
Let's see how long it takes this time. This time, they didn't swap the hard disk after all; they did swap the lower part of the laptop (containing the mainboard and the lower part of the case), and the RAM, though. Let's see... after sending it in for repairs some three or four times, that leaves the floppy drive, the CD/DVD/CD-RW combo, the battery, and the upper part of the case (not the monitor; the bit where the keyboard is) original. All other bits have been replaced at some point in time.
They made a horrific error, though. The piece of paper that came with the thing and that outlined what had been fixed, said "hard disk data couldn't be backed up". When I switched it on, they had installed Windows XP.
Of course Windows couldn't back up my data, you morons. I'm running a real operating system!
Sigh... oh well. It's not as if the thing had something important on it; last time, it took a week before it died, and at that point, the hard disk had been replaced.