T400 start up problem

My brothers Thinkpad T400 (which he got from me), suddenly doesn't start up anymore. When started up normally, the system hangs just after the Vista logo (just before you have to enter your password or use your finger ). In safe mode the system hangs here:



I've let PC-doctor do some analyses:

PCdoctor (only screen with failure):


The system is still under warranty, so I called Lenovo. They replaced the motherboard, but that didn't solve the problem. The technician thought that it was a software problem and that I had to reinstall Windows (and then I could get a bill for the service...), but also introduced the possibility dat it could be the hard drive (what I think PC-doctor indicated in the first place..). So he ran a BIOS hdd analyses, although he couldn't wait for the results:

Bios:


Question
I think it's obvious that the hard drive disk has a read error. However I wonder if this problem is hardware or software based. Before I approach Lenovo again, I want to be sure it isn't software that I could resolve myself. That could get me a bill...

All tips and remarks regarding my problem are welcome .

Bad sector
Is it likely that I can resolve the problem with software without losing data, when it turns out to be a bad sector?

Data backup
In case the problem is 100% hardware, the HDD has to be replaced. How should I backup my data? Is it a good idea to try to boot from a external media source to try to approach the faulty HDD?

Some background info
Google Learns that the 0000 error code also occurs when the laptop freezes from time to time. So I think it could be related to corrupted section of the HDD, which causes a freeze when addressed.

SpinRite seems to be a possible solution?

The only thing IBM says about this error is this, but I think that doesn't relate to my problem.

 

Yes, it's probably your HDD. First, I'd backup the data. There's no harm in booting from external devices and accessing the faulty disk, so go ahead.
Second, you can remove the HDD and connect it externally to another computer to examine the issue. Running a simple scandisk could even fix(temporary) the problem.
If you got a bad sector though, there's no point in waiting - call the support and get it replaced.
Good Luck!

 

Thanks for replying.
After I have tried to back up, I will follow your advise and try to connect it to another computer, although I do not know how (yet).

Is there any way I can determine if there is a bad sector?

 

If you don't have an external USB-to-SATA HDD-COMBO connector, it might not be the best idea.
You can just activate the recovery partition and re-install the OS, it will automatically work around the possible bad sectors and then you could run diagnostics to verify if the HDD is faulty. There's always a chance, that the problem was software (bad format table) related to begin with.