A22p power / OS problem

[diskmagnet]

Greetings! First post on this forum, looks like a very helpful place!

I've searched around a bit for this issue, and have not found my exact problem so here it goes:

I have a Thinkpad A22p I obtained from a Police auction. I've had it for about 6 months and it's taken many shapes as my utility laptop. I started with Gentoo Linux on it, for a programming class, then ran Windows 2003 Server as a router for my room, the Ubuntu to evaluate the operating system for another class. I've never had a problem installing an operating system from a bootable CD.

I recently loaded Win XP Pro on it from a SP1 CD, applied patches, updates etc for my girlfriend, until she started having problems, that involved me needing to reload.

Since I loaded XP on it the first time, I've obtained a copy of XP that has SP2 preloaded and is much more up to date. I burned it from the MSDN download site where students can access ISO's for OS installs. I slapped the disc in there, booted it up and erased the partition, created a new one, started formatting, turned to my other computer and did some internet surfing, and to my dismay when I turned around I found the screen off, in fact the entire laptop off! Not asleep, not backlit-off, but powerered down!

After trying it again and getting about the same result at the same point during the format, I figured it could be a BIOS problem. I went into the CMOS config, turned off all of the power management features, tried again to no avail. I then downloaded the BIOS flash diskette from IBM's website, applied that, tried again, and failed again.

The next step was to try a known-good copy of Windows 2000 Professional that has never let me down. I booted that up, started formatting the partition, and it got a bit farther than the XP disc did, but also quit on me.

The original disc I used when it was successful a few weeks ago is not available at the moment [though it will become available relatively soon] and thus I can't try that as a control. I was unable to find any information about this problem on IBM's website, nor on the general internet population.

Any ideas?
help greatly appriciated!
~Levi

[diskmagnet]

Still could really use an answer, or at least a starting point on this problem.

If I need to buy new parts it would be helpful to know what to buy - if it's a HD problem etc.

[Orevin]

Sounds like a hard drive problem. Check the manufacturer and download a test program from their website. If you have an enclosure, hook it up to another computer and test or format it.