My new (to me) Thinkpad T61P is refusing to boot my USB with Fedora 42 on it.

I'm sorry to put a tech support post here, but I don't see a Thinkpad community on here.

(Shocker.)

Details:

Immediately after hitting the Plymouth boot screen (Fedora logo with the spinny but under it) the laptop shuts off completely.

Both batteries I got with it appear to be dead, the HDD boots a broken copy of Windows, I even have a port replicator with it!

I'm not sure if maybe it's my USB, (both laptop and USB are thrifted) or something else.

The only OS I've attempted is Fedora, should I flash a Windows (shudder) install disk and see if that makes a difference?

Thanks, best regards, someone with a Value Village addiction and a Linux obsession.