IBook has troubles starting up: (?)

The iBook of a friend has troubles starting up. She needs an apple for her studies and has had nothing but trouble with this iBook. She has already have to replace the motherboard and faulty RAM at the store where she bought it.
The most recent trouble is this: sometimes the iBook won't start or it takes a long time before it does. On the screen appears (?). Also when she's working with the laptop, the respons time is sometimes very long.
Her teachers said her that this problem is caused by the hard disk. But I've found a topic of a forum, where somebody had the exact same problem and where replacing the HD didn't help.
Does somebody have an idea what could be an answer?
Also, the store only gives a one-year warranty, but since there have been so many parts replaced, isn't there a two year warranty?
Thanks in advance.

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Here is the link to Apple's Knowledge Base article on recovering from the flashing question mark folder:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58042
How long has it been since hard drive maintenance was performed? If it's been awhile, try booting into Safe Mode. This will take quite awhile longer than a normal startup because it does a file check and repair of the hard disk.
You will see the normal desktop. Once completely started up in Safe Mode, restart normally, and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the top hard drive icon in the left sidebar and note the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom right of the pane. What does it say?
Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar ("Macintosh HD" unless it's been renamed). What is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? Repair permissions on it.
See if a little hard drive maintenance helps out performance.

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hi there.
i can't say what the problem is but i can perhaps show you some ways to find it out.
firs thing i would do is to reset the P-Ram. shut your computer down and press "command" + "option (alt)" + "p" + "r" right after you pressed the start button and hold this combination until you hear the startup gong for tree times.
this can allready help - if not, try to boot from a system-cd. you can check the drive from system disc - do this and also check premissions.
if you have a "hardware-check" cd, you can use it to check your hardware.
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Try booting into Safe Mode. This will take quite awhile longer than a normal startup because it does a file check and repair of the hard disk.
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IBook has troubles starting up: (?)

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