Sure it could since the hard disk controller is part of the motherboard(most of the time).

If you have another laptop you could switch the hard disks and install windows on that drive using the other laptop. Once windows has been installed you can switch the drives back and allow windows to find all the new devices. I know that kinda stinks but it would work.

I still think your hard drive could be going bad.

I think you will find that the disk controller is in the hard disk package... Why? Because it alone knows where everything is on the disk surfaces. The OS just asks for things to be done[read/written].. the controller knows where it physically is or will go, not the OS.
If you did a full format during setup that would check the disk surfaces with chkdsk - and if that passes, the issue s most likely not with the hard drive. A quick format is no check at all.

I always do a full format. I have taken the old hard drive and reinserted it into the laptop to see what would happen. At first, it blue screened. Then I swapped out a RAM stick and it booted into the old hard drive fine. I then saw that the laptop was needing to install the drivers for the cd/dvd drive, so I let it do that. Then, I swaped out the hard drives to see if I could get a new install. on the new hard drive. It is still in progress, I will keep ya up to date! Thanks for working with me so far !!!!

I got the new installation on the new hard drive fine. I washed the installation disc and that seemed to really help. But, now that all the files are loaded on it and its fully updated thru Microsoft, every now and then I get the B S O D.
How do I look into the "records" and see what causes the B S O D ?

You are most likely getting a driver error. Update all your drivers and I'm sure your BSOD will stop.

check system in event viewer .
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic40108.html

It turns out that one of the sticks of RAM was bad, causing all the problems. Thanks to ALL who worked with me and helped me greatly on this issue !!!!!!!!!!!

nice to see you got it sorted out ,Bad Ram ,happens a lot