The laptop was never taken to the FBI. The laptop was most likely never in the possession of the repair place.On Chicago Progressive Radio there were talk-show hosts at the time who insisted that the laptop did not exist. They said Giuliani fabricated the story that Hunter Biden's laptop had been taken by the FBI to be used for evidence.
Perhaps these pundits believed the lie (that the laptop didn't exist), but they relied on Biden Administration sources for it, and those higher-level sources knew that the laptop did exist. It was during the 2020 election season, and this story would hurt Biden in the November election, so their best response to the story was to deny that the laptop even existed. Admitting that it did exist would promote rumors about it which would cost Biden some votes.
The whole controversy has been over an image of the laptop, not the machine itself. And the image has unquestionably been tampered with so it is of absolutely zero value as evidence of anything other than Republican lying.
Yes, a lot of stuff on the image has been shown to be genuine--clearly at some point someone got access to his actual machine and imaged it. However, it also has stuff that is demonstrably false. This is the equivalent of Photoshop.