Ok, so I took the computer in to get it repaired and got it back today. He said it was a simple fix, just a file that was corrupted somewhere along the hibernation process (a common problem among some Vista users). I asked him about possible hardware damage and he said that with a laptop, under normal circumstances, there's almost a zero percent possibility to get hardware damage from a power outage. If the power is cut to everything plugged into the PC, it would just be like pulling the plug. For a desktop that could be a problem, but because laptops use batteries it was no problem at all. I asked about the monitor input possibly damaging the graphics card and he gave me the same answer and explained that there is no power running through a monitor cable, it's only a video signal and that there's no way to damage it like that. Just thought everyone should know, in case this comes up again in the future.