Mid 2006 Macbook Pro won't boot (from HD or optical)

My mid 2006 Macbook Pro will not boot from the hard disk, or from the internal DVD. I am currently running the latest version of Lion (10.7).

I tried searching the forums and found a similar issue here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1687899?start=0&tstart=0

But that was with a Mac Mini. And it doesn't look like the OP issue was ever resolved. I am having the exact same problem.

When attempting a normal boot from the internal HD of the Macbook Pro. It will make the happy chime of a successful POST. It will display the Apple logo. And that's as far as she gets.

No spinning wheel, no error image, no nothing. Eventually the system will start spinning up the fans as if it were under load (this was after about a half hour of just letting it sit there).

Doing a verbose boot, it never went past this:

com.apple.driver.Apple.IntelCPUPowerManagement

Photo of verbose boot:

Here's what I've tried.

1. Bought a brand new battery (as the current one was at death's door)

2. Zapped PRAM (Apple + Option + P + R)

3. Reset SMC according to these directions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US

4. Attempted to boot to my original Tiger (10.4) install DVD, only to stop at this point during a verbose boot (Apple V):

Extension "com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform" has immediate dependencies on both com.apple.kernel and com.apple.kpi components; use only one style

Photos:

5. I am able to put her in Target Disk Mode (hold T at boot). Then with a firewire cable I can connect it to my wife's Macbook 13" and I am able to run disk utility on it! Disk Utility did find and repair errors, however, it still refuses to boot.

6. I attempted to boot from my wife's Macbook 13" in Target Disk Mode. I put her machine in Target disk mode. Connected the firewire cable. Powered on my 15" MBP while holding the option key. Then I selected her drive as the boot disk... however it still refuses to boot even from a known working HD.

7. Finally, I swapped around RAM DIMMs with no change in behavior.

Help! I know she's an older gal (Laptop is 6 years old now) but I'm not exactly flush with cash and would rather not give up on her just yet.