Is your son a computer hacker?

[Byzantine Prince]

Software can't destroy hardware, a lot of this page is an overreaction.

I've burned my motherboard more then once by messing with the booting settings when I first got a computer as a kid. It's definetly possible if you mess witht the main settings somehow.

[LeftEyeNine]

There were HDD damaging softwarez I had come up with at some website. Giving an irreversible and/or repeatetive command to a hardware must be enough for self-destruciton, I think. And since HDD is a more mechanical hardware compared to other components of a computer, I think it is more vulnerable to such damages.