BleepingComputer.com: Laptop sounds like ti boots, but no display

have a IBM think-pad laptop, running XP.

Yesterday, I was using the computer and the mouse and keyboard stopped working. I held down the power button until it shut off and then waited a minute and turned it back on. I hear the hard drive/fan going, but i cannot see anything. I hooked up an exterior monitor and nothing. I have tried to power it down and up and still see nothing. after it sits a little while, i can see the splash screen and sometimes it boots thorough to windows desktop. works for a minute and then touch-pad/keyboard non-responsive. i was able to boot into safe mode once and it worked for a minute or two then non-responsive again.
Any thoughts or suggestions?

It has been sitting a couple hours and i tried to turn it on again, and it still has a black screen. nothing. is it a motherboard? HD?
I have "spare" laptop here that has a dead hard drive. If we cannot get the one working, maybe we can swap parts to get the data off this hard drive? or even piece together a laptop that would work?

This post has been edited by out4trout: 28 May 2011 - 02:39 PM

make one from two!
the hard drive will no likely boot when put into the other laptop ,unless it has same hardware in it ,so you need to hook drive to a working computer to remove the files .
you will need either a IDE or SATA 2.5 hdd to usb adapter to do that . like the one in the link below.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2477926&csid=_25

no reason to diagnose the problem? that is fine if it is the case, but can you give me a step by step on how to accomplish the "make one from 2" scenario? i get the take the Hard drive out of the one...then what?
use the adapter to move all data to another CPU. then assemble the "new" laptop. then install operating system and programs in "new" laptop. then transfer data to new laptop?

any way that i can be sure all the laptop parts will "work" together with each other? or any way to determine which way to build it? for example should i just put the good hard drive in the machine with the bad hard drive, or should i put the mother board in the machine with the good hard drive which has the suspected "bad" motherboard?
the laptops are both IBM, but they are a couple years apart model wise if that helps.

if the other laptop only has a bad hard drive ,then just change the hdd, reinstall windows if necessary ,if the 2 laptops are the same[they have to both have same motherboard chipset and more ] it might boot to the hard drive with out reinstalling

This post has been edited by caperjac: 28 May 2011 - 06:37 PM

ok i will give that a try and post back

well that worked! i am up and running on the old laptop.
thanks!
any idea on how i find out what is wrong with the other one so i can see if it is "cheap" to fix?

not sure about a cheap fix ,hard to fix internal problems from a far,it needs to be looked at upclose by someone in the know ,computer repair shop type ,but that usually isn't cheap,good luck