Hard Drives Northwest up to big-box challenge.(100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies)

Four-year-old Hard Drives Northwest Inc. was busily moving into its new Bellevue store in October. The 20,000-square-foot retail and manufacturing space is the fledgling company's third location, with each location bigger than the last.

"This is another big jump," said co-founder and president Brian Jessen. The expansion also puts the computer store on track for about $18 million in sales for 1997.

Jessen's partner Hugh Stewart said key months for the business are November, December and January. "When the weather gets bad, people purchase more computer systems," he said.

Business at Bellevue-based Hard Drives is nearly evenly split between retail and corporate sales, installation and service of computer hardware systems, they said. But that is starting to lean more toward corporate.

"We're focused on small-to-medium-sized business …