Earlier quoted context omitted.
All kinds of laptops have had accelerometers since the early 2000s or so. (IBM ran commercials for their ThinkPads with “airbag” all the time. Yep, this was already built into laptops when IBM still sold ThinkPads.) They stop the hard drive when accelerations get too extreme.
I thought they stopped the drive when the acceleration is zero (freefall). If the acceleration is high, it's probably too late.
Zero acceleration only happens after an object has been falling for a long time (more then a few seconds) and the friction is in balance with gravity. Zero acceleration also happens when the laptop is just sitting on a table. Probably wouldn't be a good measure to stop the drive.
Initially, an object falling will accelerate with g=9.81m/s^2, after it reaches the ground it will de-accelerate to a speed of 0m/s in a couple of ms. You are confusing weightlessness/zero-g with no acceleration.