Laptop won't turn on.

My boyfriend recently scurried off to college, and since he didn't have a laptop to take with him, my dad offered to let him have his old one.

Its an IBM Thinkpad ISeries model 1412, and it hasn't been touched in a year or so (since my dad got a new computer). When I try to turn it on, it just goes 'click click click click click' and the little green light flashes. I tried letting it recharge overnight, and this morning the light had turned from yellow to green, but as soon as I tried to turn it on it did the same thing and the light has been consistently yellow since.

I removed the battery and stuck it back in a couple of times, and tried unplugging and replugging it another couple of times, just for good measure. But nothing seems to be working.

My gut is telling me it needs a new battery, but before I go out and buy one, is that it? Or is something else wrong with it?

Niether the boyfriend nor I have enough money to get it looked at proffesionally, and I really don't have the money for a battery either, but that's something I could handle buying if that would be the only repair it needs. But any suggestions for fixing it cheaply would be greatly appreciated. ^^'

Thanks!

Does the laptop start if the mains adapter is plugged into it?, The clicking sound could be hard disk failure. Plug the mains adapter into the laptop and try turing it on. If nothing happens then it sounds like it could be the hard disk, laptop hard drives are quite cheap these days.

Mains adapter? What is that?

The power-cable-thing is plugged in, if that's what you mean.

Meh, I'm sorry. I'm one of those people that can do just about anything with a computer that's turned on and functioning, but knows absolutely nothing about hardware.

Yea the power-cable thing.

Try to get the laptop on WITHOUT the battery plugged in.

Otherwise, your battery is dead.

If it's an older computer, I'll assume it has a built in Floppy drive. Check to make sure there is not a floppy disk in the drive. That click, click, click, click sound is something I only hear when I have a bad disk in the floppy drive. Virtually nothing else in your computer would make a noise like that.

I agree...Try that. My tower had a problem similar...It could not boot with a CD in it..(My comps are useless XD).[/quote]

Yeah guys. I have a humiliting experience with that floppy-left-in-the-drive thing. It can really make you nut why PC dont start. In my case, I brought the PC to computer shop only to find out PCs with floppy left in the drive wont bootup...

Don't worry. We all must lean some time.