If the "diode" traces lead to the busted pc-card cage, forget about it. The cage is gone and the diode has no use any more.

My Neice's laptop fell off the bed onto the wi-fi antenna, busted the cage into many peices. It was a surface mount cage, most of the traces were lifted when the pins tore loose. After cleaning out all the loose bits. It booted fine.

The only problem is, its one of those small Sony jobs where the cdrom is external and interfaces via the pc-card.