Laptop Screen Problems

Is there any hope for my laptop screen with an inch wide, and slightly opaque black line running down the right hand side?

After closing my laptop screen a little too violently a one inch opaque bar gradually appeared towards the right side of the screen. It gradually got darker and has settled at the point of annoying (about 90% opaque-ness) meaning about two inches on the right hand side of the screen are useless (unless the top edge is squeezed - leading to about 50% opaque-ness.

The question is, is this repairable by myself and is it straight forward to have a new screen installed? I don't like having to resize all my windows to fit in - so would be prepared to fork out.

I've been quoted £250 - which seems ludicrous.

If this isn't possible, is it possible to resize the size of the screen on a laptop as it possible on traditional monitors so I don't have to keep resizing my windows - and can watch dvds without the black line?

The monitor is 17.4 inches (I think) and the laptop is 13 month old Acer 3500 so the rest of the hardware is all up to scratch. It is out of warranty. I am running Windows XP.
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