dead string on strat?

whats up guys, this is my first post here and i am very new to guitars so go easy on me. my dad has let me borrow his acoustic for now and i was asking about his stratocaster that he has. he never plays it anymore and said that it has a dead string, so he doesnt like to play it much. he also said that he has taken it to get fixed twice and they said there was nothing they could do. my question is if you guys would know what would cause this and if it truly can not be fixed. i dont know where he took it but i would guess guitar center or somewhere similar. it just seems odd that something like that could render a guitar playless. fyi its a squire strat, and he thought it might be something with the neck. any ideas? thanks in advance. :)

[font=trebuchet ms]Can you please be more specific about what you mean by "dead string" ??[/font] :confused:

well thought yall might know as i am not totally sure. i think my dad was saying that there was one string that wouldnt stay in tune or sounded different which doesnt allow the guitar to be in tune. i might have to get more info from him if this doesnt help. just thought i would ask though. :)

[font=trebuchet ms]I'm asking because none of those sound like problems that couldn't be fixed fairly easily.[/font]