Micro$haft must love this - what happens when your HDD crashes or the OS gets corrupted?

"Sorry mate, your disk's encrypted at the hardware level - you'll have to buy a new one with the OS installed since the HDD's onboard protection prevents overwriting system files to prevent data theft..."

And, I'm assuming there is some sort of tie-in between the HDD and the original MoBo - since it has to be able to boot up and be used by a 'valid' user, how can it tell the difference between the original, "permitted" owner and the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] who stole it or the poor unsupecting second-hand buyer who got it off EvilBay but (presumably) shouldn't have access to the stuff that was worth encrypting in the first place?

What about overseas travel to those censorous Dictatorships where you have to surrender your IT kit on arrival to fight Terrorism? What happens when you *cannot* supply the decryption key since it's hardware-encoded? (And why is it that Senior Execs from EU arms companies are subjected to the full shakedown while the PFY from backwater Hicksville, OH gets through with his top-of-the-line laptop containing Timothy McVeigh's life story and the Anarchists' Cookbook gets through unchecked..??)

I for one welcome our unreadalbe Hardware Overlords.