Start-up problem disappears after several months non-use? Real?

Question

Old Satellite laptop suddenly would not complete start-up when turned on ---- this was more than 18 months ago.  So I stopped using it, charged the battery and left it for 18 months.  NO usage for 18 months; maybe the battery drained during this time, maybe not. 
When I then took laptop to a diagnostic technicianafter those months of non-use, the computer started-up with NO PROBLEM.  (I actually do not remember if I recharged the battery just before taking to the diagnostic servicer or not). 
Was the nonusage for several months and battery drainage meaninful or not?  Would this be just a temporary unknowable problem which disappeared?  Since starting the computer several times to try, the computer still starts normally and the only problem I can observe is a stress in the CD drive upon trying to use certain CD's; otherwise, the computer still seems to be working normally, and shows no trouble in start-up.
I do not understand.

Answer 1

Dbrown and others interested,
Here are the basic details:
Laptop Satellite 1415-s115, purchased new in year 2003, Windows XP Home Ed., S.P. 1.
In use a few times per month for about 2 to 2 and a half years.  Used for dial-up internet, transferring and copying files, putting onto CD's, and some use for software development.  Then, almost daily use from 2006 to mid 2008 for wireless internet use and sometimes transferring and storing files, putting files onto CD.  
Suddenly in late spring, 2008 Start-Up would not finish when I turned on computer.  After each and every attempt, 15, 20, more minutes, startup was still not finished.  In this process, the computer was useless.
Retail technician began an initial try to startup in the retail shop and gave, after various aimless discussions, that testing would take a few hours to do thoroughly and the cost for diagnosis would be ~140 dollars - before any repair attempt.  So, at that, the computer was still useless, and our decision was to just store the apparantly dead computer at home, and buy a new laptop computer.
Early summer 2008 through late autumn 2009, I used the new laptop computer, now at Windows Vista on a different model Satellite laptop. 
A day in late autumn 2009 --- Let me find what an authorized Toshiba service technician can tell me from his diagnosis!  I explained the problem to him.  After a couple of minutes, he showed me the old laptop was fully started-up, showing no problem.  He said "play around with it a little"; so I did play around with it a little and found no problem.  Then, remembering the difficulty from 18 months earlier, I said, do a diagnosis to be sure.  He ran tests overnight for several hours.  I then was able to pick up my old laptop the next day and he found NO problem during the diagnostic tests.  He turned on the computer again and let me play around with some of the programs to see for myself. 
Since bringing the old laptop back from the authorized toshiba technician, NO REPAIR NEEDED, I have started it up about two or three times per week and have done a few things and find NO problem with startup and nearly no problem with anything...... just one difficulty with the optical disc CD drive when I put in certain CD's; either something about the paper labels which I used, or something about a CD-R being recorded as "Open" instead of "Closed", ... I'm not yet sure.  Those certain CD's seem to suddenly cause a motor noise and the machine becomes extrreeeeeeeemmely slow responding  --- only with certain CD's, since most do not seem to cause this particular problem.  (These same certain CD's seem to cause some difficulties when I try to read them in another old, desktop machine).
(In case readers in this thread are interested, just two days ago, I updated to XP S.P. 3 on the old laptop)
Well, so tell me what you can think is most meaningful