OK, so I snuck into work to go see the PC Services guy about the problem with my laptop. Apparently the video cards on the T40's are notorious for going out due to how people hold their laptops--too much flexing and not enough clearance where the board is located causes fried circuits. Anyway he didn't have any spare T40's lying about so instead of just swapping out my hard drive into another chassis, he had to build me a completely new system. So I now have a T43 which I am hoping and praying will be as reliable and trouble-free as my T40 was for almost 4 years. While he worked on my new system, he plugged my hard drive into a loaner and I took care of some urgent personal email.