Well, Gateway did end up sending out a replacement drive sooner than expected, but they sent one that was completely wrong.

Both the wrong drive and my original drive had the same 15 character product code on them, so that shows you how well Gateway manages its inventory.

(edited to add) I also wanted to mention that Gateway had previously set us up to receive a desktop drive. Fortunately, we called in to nag about having to wait so long to receive the replacement when an agent discovered that we were waiting for a desktop drive, rather than the laptop drive we received.

Also, a number of agents have tried to assuage the situation by saying stuff like, "well, a lot of people are waiting a long time for replacement parts" - as if the fact that a bunch of other people are getting screwed is supposed to make our situation better? What it really shows is that Gateway is pretty lousy.