What to do - very knackered Toughbook

[MSIC]

I wanted to get some ideas on what to do with a knackered Panasonic Toughbook CF-W2.
(Specs = 'Centrino' Pentium M 1.2Ghz, 512MB RAM (this is the max!), 40GB, Intel 855 chipset inc graphics).

The History
Basically a friend of mine who owns his own business told me about this old Toughbook laptop which around a year ago starting having Windows 'issues', he took it to a repair shop, who promptly dropped it, fully damaged the screen (loads of cracks, not functioning beyond some basic back-lighting), also knackered the catches on the DVD-ROM under the keyboard so it cannot close itself without a weight on, which also means the integrated touchpad doesn't work, and also the keyboard is totally non-functional!

My friend thinks that the repair guy basically must have had it in for him, because to be able to do that much damage to a toughbook can't have been easy, especially when it was only a software issue initially!

The long and short is, my mate went to the small claims court, got a new Toughbook (upgraded of course), but was sad that his wedding & honeymoon photos were forever lost... (lesson to be learnt...). When he told me this, i said i'd give it a whirl, and in return for getting the photos (which i did using an Ubuntu USB stick and VGA out to my monitor), he gave me the Toughbook.

The current options
So... this machine is more battered than a fish in a chip shop, and could well cost a packet to repair (new screen? - I've been looking on ebay for a few weeks, nothing obvious coming up), and as you see from the specs isn't that modern any more.

I could sell it i suppose, i have the power cable, but nothing else. It does have an XP Pro licence sticker.

I'm actually thinking about some sort of media device (mythbuntu? VGA out to my plasma?) However i have a wonderful WD HD TV, which does all my media streaming inc high-def perfectly.

I could also use it as some sort of 'downloading' machine, not hooked up to anything but an external USB drive, and remote-desktop into it from time to time, as it's going to be pretty power efficient.

I've also used it already to muck about with (Win 7 RC actually works ok, even with 512MB RAM, but no intel graphics driver really sucks donkeys).

Any other good ideas i'm missing? Thanks lords and ladies...

[peterb]

There is a company in the US (Toughbook exchange?) that does Toughbook spares - but not cheap and you have the cost of shipping on top. There aren't that many options, they are a niche market anyway, and the sort of niches they are used in tend to be the ones where "if it gets trashed, buy a new one".