MBP 17" 2009 freezing on startup at white screen. Hard drive issue?

[Thylacine]

Hi all,

I have a MacBook Pro 2.66Ghz 17" Unibody MacBook Pro 2009 running OS X 10.6.4, and have this problem:

Freezes on startup at white screen with grey Apple logo.
Used to run OK in single-user mode, but now also freezes.
Airport won't turn on, and sometimes freezes when I try. Airport card is recognized in "About this Mac."
Ran Tech Tool Deluxe and passes all tests except for Volume Structure. When I select Repair, it quits by itself and doesn't complete repair.
Wiped hard drive and reinstalled system from scratch, but same problems persist.

Does this sound like a failing hard drive or a logic board problem since Airport is affected? My warranty just expired, so I'm thinking of installing a new (and bigger) hard drive myself, but wonder if this won't solve the problem...

TIA

 

[Bankaimadness]

Things like this always scares me. I mean come on Apple, you just sold a 2k+ computer to someone and now it is causing them problems in just over a year and right when their Warranty just expired?
Macs are suppose to be about quality in both exterior wise and interior hardware wise.