I experienced an ubrupt power outage and possible surge
the other night and I beleive it has messed up my
computer. When it starts, it makes a lot of clicking noises
and then flashes an error code "00174" and then goes to
the Test Section of what I believe is called "Easy-Setup".
BIOS version, Date : INET30WW, 11/20/99. I think I read
in the tech manual that this is a configuration error. It
also says that In the diagnostics section, if the icon is gray
rather than blue.... that device is defective. Lucky me... it
happens to be HDD1 & HDD2. I was in the middle of a
drafting project and just about done. Had saved to file,
but had not backed up on storage media. Am I totally
screwed, or is there a way around this. I want to get this
machine running, but I don't want to lose all my files. Any
info would be much appreciated.

See if the Easy-Setup has some sort of drive auto-detect or redetect feature, or see if the diagnostics doesn't help. If not, read on...

You can try the drives in a different computer. If they work, then your laptop is bad, but you'll get your data back. If they don't, then your drives are bad, and your laptop might be as well. This is why you unplug your laptop.

Is the problem computer the Thinkpad you listed in your specs?