Well the screen being black doesn't mean it isn't coming on, it could just be the screen.
In the case of removing the battery.... well some are easier than others. And some are a down right major pain. Yours seems to be the latter.
If lights come on, and you hear noise (fan, hard drive, etc.) then I would try plugging in an external monitor and see if you can see things on it. If so, then the display on the laptop is the problem. If you can't see anything on the external monitor, but you are sure the computer itself is running, then it may be your graphics card.
Now if the computer isn't turning on at all, then you will need to pull the battery to test it and see if the problem is the battery being dead or something else.
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