Can a virus damage a hard drive?

[FishPolice]

As per title really.

A work colleague took his pc back to the shop that originally ripped him off (oops I mean sold him the pc) because windows started misbehaving & eventually refused to load. The shop has just called him & told him they think the hard drive might be knackered as a result of a virus (ie his fault & not a dodgy hard drive -system was purchased this summer so is under warranty).
I told him a virus can't physically damage a hard drive. What do you guys think?

They already scammed him big time on the pc when he bought it so I suspect foul play here too.

 

[FishPolice]

ok so I was right when I told him they were talking rubbish. Thought so but nice to make sure

They told him they found a load of trojans in there & reformatted it. They couldn't be bothered to save any of his files first of course

Shame cos I'd offered to sort it for him for nothing but he's adamant he wants to keep his warranty.

The shop took off his mcaffe (spelling?) and replaced it with AVG, ZoneAlarm & Spybot, threw in a soundcard & charged him £60 all in all. Bit of a waste but it's his money I suppose.

Anyway the hard drive seems fine now but I've told him to keep an eye on it. I also told him next time he wants to spend £600+ he should build it himself or at least come here to get spec'd up. The shop told him it was top of the range when he bought it in July this year -it's a 3500 // 6800 // 1gb machine. Does what he wants at the moment but it certainly wasn't "the fastest AMD-based machine" this summer was it?!!