Computer Customer Service ... Bleh!

Customer service probably has deteriorated in every sector, but recently I experienced it with regard to my computer and I am really peeved!
Lately my computer has been on the fritz. I'm a writer and I haven't been able to use Microsoft Word to do my work. Every time I open Word, it just freezes up and won't let me do anything. So of course I was gone all weekend and then had a bunch of projects due Tuesday and Wednesday.
Anyway, I figured out that my hard drive was totally packed. The spec sheet for my computer says I should have 60 GB of space on my hard drive. I have two hard drives. The C drive says it has 21 GB available, and it was totally full. The D drive says it has about 7 GB available. I'm no math whiz but I'm pretty sure 21 and 7 add up to 28. Which I believe (again, I'm no math whiz), is less than 60. It's about 32 GB less than 60.
So I went online to Gateway (that's the kind of computer I have and a computer tech told me it's not a good kind), and found that Gateway sold the line of computers that includes mine. So I'm supposed to go to this other site to get information. I click on "chat with a Gateway representative" anyway.
The web site has already scanned my computer and found the serial number.
Finally a Gateway representative comes on. He says he can tell from my serial number that my computer is out of warranty and so as a one time courtesy he'll give me a best effort conversation to help me. Thanks so much! After spending $1000 on this darn computer (granted, it was 4 years ago and that's a million years in laptop years), I get a lousy best effort conversation. Which, he adds, will include some "self help" I can use to fix the computer.
I'm pretty sure this one time best effort conversation isn't going to help me with my parenting skills, my wife skills or my work-life balance skills. This
I tell (type) him my problem and he types to me that it sounds like a hard drive issue. He tells me to do a system recovery (which my computer will not do, by the way) and then if that doesn't help then I should replace the hard drive. REPLACE THE HARD DRIVE. No problem. Let me get my screwdriver.
So I ask, "What happened to my 32 GB?"
He types, "MrsDartt, I've given you the steps to resolve your issue."
That is not very helpful.
Anyway, the next day, I followed my mom's suggestion and backed up all my photos to an external hard drive. I realized they were taking up 5 GB of space on the hard drive so I took them off this computer and now it's working like a dream. No thanks to the Gateway computer representative.
But I did some great self help.