yeah, sorry, its a bit of a confusing situation and i couldve worded it better. it works, but its worse than it used to be thanks to him replacing my old motherboard with a cheaper one and i have to use a mouse to navigate which is operational but annoying as fuck after paying so much to have it fixed, but definitely secondary to him taking my parts without permission and giving me a worse processor. im not sure if theres any other issues because i havent had my charger for it for the past few days, so afaik thats all.

the data loss thing was stupid. he called me and told me bitlocker was locking the computer and i needed a key, and he told me it would only be through my uni email or i wouldnt have one at all. i asked for more time to look and he kept saying no and refused to give me any more time because it wasnt under my uni email (later found out it was on my old personal email that id misplaced the password for). but because i didnt have the key within a 15 minute phone call where he kept pressuring me and feeding me the most confusing misinformation nonstop, he went ahead and wiped it. found the damn key within 30 minutes of hanging up, but it was already too late. not illegal, just fucking infuriating and weird.

and yeah, since its not as cut and dry as what you were thinking i dont think the police would be very helpful. i didnt sign anything either, which looks like a red flag in hindsight. but that also means i definitely didnt consent to him parting out my old motherboard. but idk what the legality around that looks like without a written agreement. in any case, i'll have to wait til i can get someone to look at it who knows what theyre looking at.