Thinkpad T400 with Vista OS won't start up

[MerrickBalsam]

Hello all,
I'm a relatively non-proficient computer user with a T400 that is having some issues with starting up all the way. For some background, this is a pretty old computer obviously, and has had its share of trouble already. It has had one battery die and one hard drive die. Lately, it has been sporadically over-heating and turning itself off. I wouldn't be surprised if my present dilemma is the result of multiple interacting problems, but I would really appreciate if anyone could help me out.

My laptop is set to hibernate when it's closed, and today when I opened it up it was just a black screen - not a black screen like the computer was off, but like the black screen shown during start-up when no words are shown. This wasn't alarming to me because I often have to turn the computer off via the power button and then turn it back on, because opening the screen sometimes doesn't seem to force it out of hibernation. But when I did it today, I started getting this problem.

If I press the power button and then do nothing, it goes through the initial boot stages and eventually comes to a "Windows failed to start" Windows Error Recovery screen, suggesting that I launch Startup Repair. If I do launch startup repair, I get to the "System Recovery Options" window but there are no operating systems listed. When I click "Next" I'm informed I must log in to access System Recovery Options, and then I'm forced to restart, repeating the process. On the other hand, if I select to Start Windows Normally, I get that same blank black screen.

I am able to access BIOS. Here's what I have tried so far -
1. Burning Lenovo Diagnostics (http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS025448) to a bootable CD and attempting to run it on the T400. The T400 won't boot from the CD. I definitely burned it as an .iso file, and I sent the DVD-RAM drive up to the front of the boot order, and I also tried pressing F12 and selecting the drive specifically. I also changed SATA Controller Mode to "Compatability" - I don't know what that means, but I read it as a possible solution. No matter what I have tried, I hear some whirring from the CD drive during start-up, but then it stops and I end up at the same Windows Error Recovery screen.
2. HDD diagnostic program in BIOS. When I do this, the test doesn't progress at all and I get "Error code 0000: Read verification failed."

Any ideas? I've been thinking it may be time for a new laptop, but if there's a possibility of prolonging this laptop's life then I feel I might as well. Thanks in advance for your help.

Edit: Another thing I noticed is that a lot of people have T400 start-up issues due to a broken USB port. I do have a broken port, but I made sure that none of the pins are touching each other or either side. So I don't think that's the problem either.

Edit 2: I think the problem with booting from the disk was incompatibility between Lenovo's diagnostic software and my laptop. I was able to boot from a recovery disk for another laptop. I tried to carry out a system restore, but again there was no operating system listed, and when I went into "load drivers" there was no C: drive and I wasn't able to find any system restore files that would work.

I also ran startup repair and it was unable to fix any problems automatically. And I ran chkdsk c: /r and it said "Cannot open volume for direct access."

I'm also unable to boot into safe mood. It gets stuck at the "loading windows files" screen.

In my uneducated eyes, it's starting to look like a deeply corrupted C: drive. Is there any hope at all for recovery? Any tips at all would be appreciated.