10.4 Live CD locked up my laptop

[ckuter]

I have a HP nc6000 running XP pro. I downloaded 10.4 LTS last night, and ran it this morning as a Live CD. It seemed to take a long time to get up and running, but it finally did. Seemed to work OK. I have an external monitor and plugged that into the laptop (done that before with XP and no problem) and it worked with the external monitor being to the "right" (click and drag right put the image on the external monitor) of the laptop's screen. I went into the Monitors preference and switch the screens so the laptop's screen is on the right and the external is on the left. The laptop froze up with the main image on the external monitor. I could not unfreeze it. I turned off the power. I tried to reboot and nothing. The CD light on the laptop flickered and then went dead. CD will not work. The hard drive is not accessed.

I unplugged the laptop and took out the battery, for a few minutes. I removed the Ubuntu CD from the CD drive and attempted to boot normally from the HD. Nothing at all.

I have a second HD with 8.04 LTS installed onto it. Same result as with the XP HD. Nothing nada zip

Any suggestions? I am not a computer expert, but I am starting to think I just ruined my laptop.