Issue With CD Drive and AC Adapter

I have a laptop and it is an IBM Thinkpad. It has Windows XP on it and it says right under the monitor Lenovo T60. The AC adapter is a Lenovo 90W 20V adapter.

I doubt this part has much to do with it, but around 2 months ago, the battery started to become spotty in charging (I have had the laptop for a year so this is not that unusual) and so I didn't make much of it.

Anyway, around a week ago (right after I had gotten back from vacation, so the laptop could have definitely been bumped around during travel) when I started to turn on the laptop, it would have the safely remove hardware feature in the system tray. Two things would be inside of there, one that said Sierra (I don't believe that one is important) and the CD drive (it had some weird name that I looked up and realized it was the CD drive) saying it was at drive 0. Whenever I would close the lid and put it on standby without logging out or switching user, it would open up with an error message saying that it could not successfully remove this drive currently. Then it would have a small yellow window appear by the safely remove hardware and say it was now safe to remove the CD drive. After that, the computer would immediately go on standby. When I tried to take the computer off standby, everything would appear normal until the exact same steps happened, and then the error message and the small pop-up appeared and it would appear on standby.

Since I could use the computer for a little while before it went on standby, I tried to restart the computer. However, midway during the shutdown, the computer somehow went on standby. I would have to coldboot the computer if I wanted to use it again.

Very recently, only around 2 days ago or so, the battery stopped charging for a day or two and so I kept the AC adapter plugged in so I wouldn't waste the battery. However, it was unplugged and running for a while and it went to a critical level. I replugged the AC adapter but I could not turn the computer on, whenever I tried I got a 1-3-3-1 beep pattern (I checked and this is not a recognize IBM beep pattern). Eventually I noticed that the battery started charging after a few days of being plugged in and then I tried pulling out the AC adapter and the computer started running, but with the error message and all that. I can plug the AC adapter in after startup with no repercussions but the issue of starting it with the AC adapter stays.

Is there anything I can do or should I hire a computer specialist? Thanks for your help.