Asus g1s black screen help research paper due soon LAPTOP effectively DIED?

I bought my Asus G1S used off of eBay last Christmas from a reputable source and it has worked great. It has added ram and I upgraded it from vista*32 to 7*64 I've used a cooling pad for it to help with temperature, and as of this morning it was working. I then decided to take it mobile and after walking from class to class (college) with the laptop in sleep (screen closed) the computer will now boot with a black screen. Absolutely blank, but hard drive activity and even the ability to log in (memorized keystrokes). I've surfed the forums and apparently it's a problem with the NVidia 8600m. So I have multiple problems here. It's definitely out of warranty and from what I've read Asus won't help me at all unless I cash out, something I'm not comfortable doing considering I bought the thing for much less than retail (back in the day). Please tell me I'm wrong and that Asus will be wonderful and help me out...If so, how can I contact them quickly and efficiently?

I have a big research paper due tomorrow and I NEED the information from the hard drive. Is there any way I could just implant it into another computer temporarily or somehow get the information off?

Lastly, are there any possibilities for self-repair? I'm no computer engineer but i'm fairly confident with my techno-knowledge to take myself (with proper instruction) through a repair process.

TIME and MONEY are the problems here!!!

Thank you so much for helping this is an incredibly stressful experience.