[manasecret]

Do you have any other power supplies laying around? That would be an easy way to figure out if it's just your power supply (the cord dealie), and not something more critical (read: harder to fix) inside your computer.

Just make sure the specs on the power supply matches the one that came with your laptop. You want the output voltage to be exactly the same, and the output current to be equal to or greater than the one that comes with your laptop.

If you don't have one, I know that many stores like Best Buy sell universal power supplies now.

And remember from now on, since you learned the hard way -- surge protectors are critical for your expensive, time-consuming-to-replace electronics. And while the battery backup/surge protector systems (usually called a UPS) that Prof. S mentioned are nice to have, they are not any better at surge protecting than surge protectors and they're a whole lot more expensive. A UPS may help protect against swells in the line voltage, but most laptop power supplies these days are designed to handle more than twice the standard U.S. voltage (240V and up) with no problem at all. And a sag probably wouldn't do any damage.