Annoying Disk Drive Noise and "spongy keyboard"

I just purchased a new 17inch HP Envy Touchsmart with Windows 8. There are 2 annoying issues that I have and just wanted to see if this is normal and I just have to live with it or if mine is somewhat defective. First, at start up and shutdown the disk drive makes a distinctive somewhat grinding noise. It just sounds bad and makes me think it's not well made. I spent a lot on this and my older, cheaper laptops never did this. Doesn't affect performance; just annoying.
Same with the keyboard. The left side only is spongy in that the keyboard noticably drops when I press a key. Just makes me doubt the quality of the machine. I am debating taking it back for an exchange, but wanted to see if this is standard with HP. If so, I don't care for it. Thank you.
P.S. I have had this laptop for about 2 months and purchased it at a local Best Buy.
Thanks. Steve

My new ENVY 17 makes no HDD noise as you described. But the keyboard is horribly spongy, making it quite hard to know what keys I am pressing. Others in the same shop were a littel spongy, certainly enough to doubt the quality, but mine is 10 times as bad as the others on display in the shop. Unfortunately the shop is in a different country, and HP in the country I am in has no idea when they can get parts to repair the problem. Meanwhile, I have no computer.
So yes, your keyboard quality problem is "normal" for the HP 17, but some are much worse than others when new. Whether the "normal" problem with quality gets worse or not over a little time is a good question. If HP Tech Suppport could assure me this problem never gets worse, but just stays annoying, it would be reassuring. But they do not give me this reassurance.

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