Not sure where to turn...

When I try to turn on my IBM T23 Thinkpad running win2000 pro, it freezes at the initial startup screen. My power adapter is working/charging fine as is the internal fan.

At the bottom left corner of the frozen startup screen, it says:

Press F1 for IBM BIOS Setup Utility
Press F12 to choose temporary boot device

Right before the screen seems to freeze, the screen goes from full illumination to half illumination.

Usually, my OS loads right after this screen.

Before this happened, I was trying to set up a wireless home network and was installing the CDROM for the Netgear MA111 wireless USB adapter when my laptop's desktop crashed and I was given the choice of "restoring active desktop". I chose that, removed the Netgear CD from the drive, and then hit the restart button...which led to frozen start up screen.

After turning the computer on and off a few times...I noticed that when I press F1 and turn on the computer at the same time, I get the DOS BIOS screen. When I hit F12 and turn on the computer, I get the temporary boot device. Unfortunately, I have no idea what this all means.

I am hoping that even in a worst case scenario, I can recover the hard drive since it has all my work from the past year.

Thanks a lot in advance for any suggestions or referrals to computer technicians in the NYC area.