Vaio freezes midRestore on grey screen, hlp!!

Hi there, I'm asking on behalf of a friend who has a Sony Vaio that's crashed on them. Everytime we've tried to do a hard reset, it freezes. The only way to get outta this is to remove the battery n unplug. We tried contacting the manufacturer for some help, but of course they wanted a couple hundred dollars just to talk about what it "might be" over the phone. We don't know if this is the end for this laptop or not, but we're hoping someone out there has some ideas? Thank you so much for all your suggestions.

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