then his remote is dead (tried mine with his unit and it is fine)

Did you try his remote with your unit, too? Did you try a new battery? Please read the FAQ entry here.

come home today and it is saying "No harddrive found again"

When he fixed it before, what did he do? Did he replace the disk drive cable? If not, please read this FAQ entry.

Both of these problems (dead battery, bad cable) are common and well known. They have nothing to do with whether or not the player was shipped by UPS.