T60 doesn't start :(

[twister6]

Just got an issue with my T60 (T7200, purchased back in 2006). Its out of warranty, and I'm trying to troubleshoot it myself. Would appreciate help!

Last summer when I purchased my T400s, I stopped using my T60. Never had issues with it until now. Booted up last week, run System Update (all the drivers, including new bios flash). Updated all XP stuff, Firefox, Spyware Doctor - tried to get everything up to date. Right from the start I start having system freeze once a day. No blue screen, just a screen freeze where I can't move the pointer, no ctrl-alt-del, no alt-tab. Had to hit power button to reboot laptop. Than, laptop was running OK for a few days until it start happening again and more than once a day. Now, I can't even start the laptop. Hit the power button, get ThinkPad splash screen, and than I just get black blank screen and "z" + battery + ac indicator in the status panel lights. I tried putting a battery from my other T60, tried booting it up without battery (just AC) no luck. I also got into BIOS util and tried to run HDD diagnostics but its stuck at 0%. Do you guys think its HDD issue? I can't even get to Safe Mode to boot up XP. Any utils I can put on USB stick or burn to CDR so I can bootup into that and run HDD diagnostics? Anything else I'm missing? Please advice.

Thanks!

[Bigdaddychud]

Try to boot to a USB/Live Cd of Linux.
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

[twister6]

I think its a problem with my hdd. I put another one from my other T60 and it started booting up to Windows (although crashed later since my work T60 is 14" with a different hw profile than my home T60 15"). I also took the hdd out of my "bad" T60 and put into USB external case. I can read the content of the drive OK, but who knows if bootsector is corrupted or Windows files got corrupted. I remember right before it went completely dead I booted it up in Safe Mode and it got stuck after loading 3rd or 4th file. Just placed an order for WD Scorpio Black (7k20, 500GB). Will start everything fresh...