you have to replace all the bad capacitors on the display panel to bring full contrast back. Otherwise, thats the condition you will see.

if you take a blowdryer and blow it on the back of the bad panel, across the caps, the screen will "brighten" up. thats how you know. Also when heated, the smell of "dead fish" is sure evidence of leaking caps.

And as far as the HDD, if its shutting down, starting up, reinitting, and shutting down. over and over again, the HDD is toast.