Macbook Pro busted? :(

[meppi]

Just wanted to ask if anyone has any ideas about a possible fix before I send it off to the repair center.

Today I started up my 2 year old 15" Macbook Pro, everything went fine.
I closed it and took it downstairs. Set it on the table and opened it, but it didn't wake up.

Only had this happen maybe twice before, so I tried the obvious things. Shut down the system completely by holding down the power button in the end.

Now it won't boot up at all.
I tried the fixes I could find on the Apple site (holding down P-R-cmd-option while booting, etc), but nothing works.

When I push the power button the DVD drive starts to spin up, but when I let go it shuts off immediately.
When I keep the button pressed, it tries to power up a bit longer, but after 5 seconds the power light starts to flash and I can hear, what I believe to be the HDD click and shut down again.

No matter what I try, the DVD drive tries to start (bottm right), then the HDD? (top left) makes a noise and the system shuts off again.

I'm certainly not an expert when it comes to hardware, which is why I chose a laptop in the first place.
But I think it might be the HDD that's fried, which would suck very badly as it holds month of work concerning my magazine scans.

Any ideas?

Edit*

Before I forget, I have been using an application to let it go into hibernation instead of sleep mode, I think it's Smartsleep.
But I've been using it for close to a year now without any problems.
Not sure if this would have anything to do with this as I've already removed the battery and power adapter to make sure the system was completely shut down.

[kazurm]

Hi,

hm, doesn't bode well, I'm afraid.
Did you:
a) try to boot from the repair DVD?
b) buy AppleCare (or still have general warranty)? If yes, go to your local apple store/retailer and let them have a look. My MacBook Pro's logic board had to be exchanged at one point

-kazurm

[meppi]

I was afraid of that...
I must say that the little guy certainly has had a lot of mileage over the past 2 years.

I've tried to boot from the DVD, but at first it wouldn't take it.
After holding down the power button and trying again it took the DVD in 2-3 tries and now I can't get the DVD out anymore as it doesn't boot long enough to be able to activate the eject button.

It never even gets to the point where anything happens on the screen either. It always remains black.

It's too late to buy Applecare I'm afraid, but I should have the standard (European) warranty of 2 years since I bough it on the 9th of May 2008.

[wakka]

You can try force ejecting the disc by holding the trackpad button during bootup. If it only lasts a few seconds before shutting down again this might not work :/

My advice would be to take it to an authorized Apple reseller/repair centre if you can't get them to do it for free.

[meppi]

Yeah that doesn't work either. Guess it doesn't have time to start the eject procedure.

At this point I'm even considering getting a new 17" one in the meanwhile as it will be extremely hard being without my system for 4 weeks or more.
I shouldn't spend that kind of money right now as I'm trying to save up for moving next year or so, but things like this always seem to happen.
If I get my old system back after repair I could use it as my media system and keep the new one as my workhorse so to speak.
hmmm