Inactive Problems with Son's College Laptop

Update on my situation: I did a live chat with HP on Tuesday night. I told them how I sort of stumbled upon the F2 Diagnostic and that I ran it on a few things and something about the Hard Drive showed FAILED. She asked me for the code that I got and after I gave it to her, she said that there is something wrong with the hard drive, but the computer is still in warranty, so they will replace it for free. That sounded great, but then there's the problem of son's college work all saved on the hard drive and not backed up anywhere. (Yes, I hope he's learned his lesson.)
She said that I would be getting a box and packing materials in the mail and that there is a form to fill out and HP would try to save what they can from the HD before returning the laptop.
I borrowed the appropriate cables from a woman I know who works on computers and we watched lots of videos on youtube and searched the internet for directions on how to get the hard drive out. It was really difficult and we got to the point where we didn't want to mess with the laptop so we're taking a chance that HP can save his stuff.
I don't know if the newer laptops are more difficult to do, but it seemed next to impossible to get to the HD without taking apart the entire computer.
So I got the materials on Thursday and shipped it on yesterday using FedEx overnight. It's going to Tennessee and his college is in Virginia. They told me that they will ship it directly to him once it's done. I paid $16 to have expediated shipping both ways. Hopefully he'll have it back within a week.
Thank you for all the suggestions and instructions.