Shoutbox

I doubt very much is a motherboard problem (unless there is a connection to the HDD which has become loose). After working with laptops both physically and via technical support I can infact pretty much guarantee its NOT the motherboard and the technician who told you that should be retrained.

Why? Well you stated you could boot a LIVE SUSE distro, meaning everything pretty much works fine when you're not using the HDD.

As AndreY said, download some disk checking programs. The surface scan in MS-DOS Scandisk is often a good check which you can do to determine bad sectors on the drive - generally the first signs of a wearing HDD. After you've attempted that making try some of the other drive diagnostic tools. While doing so make sure you're running in a very basic environment (No memory emulation, no GUI's, etc).

If you can't find anything wrong with the HDD then try some RAM scanning tools, however I doubt its the RAM either.

If all that fails and you're unable to determine the probem then i'd contact the manufacturer of the machine and ask where their local authorised service centres are. If you can, and I stress this, send your laptop to one of the authorised centres. They're qualified in the brand of laptop you're sending them and they'll be able to work out exactly whats wrong with it. I do know that Toshiba has a list of service centres on their website - just specify your location and it lists the closest ones to you..