T42/xp - hangs on startup - SOS =|

[Bg357]

So the other day, my trusty T42 suddenly refuses to startup. It seems to power on normally, lights flash appropriately, fan comes on, hard drive spins up, intel/centrino screen comes up, then the screen goes blank and the hard drive indicator light stops it's typical flashing and that's it, nothing else happens. Hard drive light never comes on again, screen stays blank, the fan continues to run, and sometimes speeds up, oddly enough, like it needs to dissipate some heat (from doing what, I have no idea). The fan is the only indication that anything at all is occurring.

My immediate thought is that the hard drive has crapped out, even though it's not very old.
But when I pulled the hard drive and checked it in an ultrabay on another computer, it seems to run fine, it just won't boot up.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Harryc]

Try booting up with a Live Linux CD. What happens?
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

[poshgeordie]

+1 on the Linux Live CD

Is there any video output via the external VGA socket?