600e wont boot... please help!!! Im Desperate...

[xnosorrow]

my 600e will POST then it will not load windows. it will be stuck on a black screen with a blinking cursor on the upper left side of the screen. i've tried to reset CMOS; reseat memory, hdd, cdd; remove batteries.. Please help!!!! this is a great machine and i dont want to lose it... your help will be greatly appreciated... thanks...

[tfflivemb2]

Try removing the CMOS, main battery, and AC adapter and let it sit for atleast 5 minutes. Then with everything still removed, after 5 minutes, press and release the power switch 10 times and on the tenth time hold the power switch for 10 seconds. Then add the CMOS and the AC adapter and see if it will boot.

[xnosorrow]

thanks i'll try that.. i'll update you if it will work....

[xnosorrow]

it did'nt work... i've also tried to reformat the tp, it thought it to be a hdd issue, bec it boots from the cd, i tried to replace the hdd, with the same results.. any other suggestions?

[pkiff]

This may not help, but...

Can you get into Easy-Setup by pressing and holding F1 as soon as you turn on the machine? If so, then check to see if the hard drive is still set as one of the devices in your boot sequence -- I would try making it the first one and seeing if that makes any difference. I don't know if the 600e has built-in testing diagnostics in the Easy-Setup screen or not, but if so, then you could try to test the hard drive/IDE.

Phil.

[xnosorrow]

thanks, i already tried that, still no go.. i also replaced the hdd...

[GomJabbar]

You didn't mention which version of Windows you are using.

If you boot up from the Windows install CD, did you try to partition and format the hard drive, then install Windows? If so, what happened?

It would be best to remove any existing partitions on the hard drive first, then create a partition and format before installing Windows. Of course if you do that, all existing data on the hard drive will be erased.

I gather from reading your previous posts that you cannot enter the BIOS setup menu. Is this correct? Did you try to enter the BIOS by first completely powering off the laptop, then press the power button to start the boot process, and immediately press the F1 key about once per second until you get to the EZSetup menu? Is it possible that a Supervisor password or perhaps a hard disk password has been set up on your 600E?

Do you ever see any numeric error messages at any time? If so, what are they?

[xnosorrow]

i'm using win2k... i can boot to ezsetup... i've tried to change the sequence of the bootup, still no go... i also tried to reformat and repartition the hdd using a cd bootdisk, and i was able to do so...reboot with the same results... Somebody told me that it might be the hdd connecter or something.. Is it possible that it could be? after all the hdd is detected and i was able to format it... Could a Bios Update might fix it? If so, How can I update the BIOS w/o fdd? Steps? How Can I find the existing version of my CMOS? What Version do I need? i'm sorry, i have so many questions... is just that this is my first laptop and i really love it... i dont want to put it to waste... thanks

[GomJabbar]

Did you have W2K working on this laptop previously? W2K does require a BIOS update from the original version for all features to work - yet I believe it should boot up even without the update.

Did you initialize the BIOS before trying the install? If you have extra ram installed, have you tried removing it, then installing W2K?

When you partitioned and formatted the drive, did you try to install W2K at the same time?

Have you used this hard drive before, or did you acquire a used hard drive?

Regarding the hard drive connector, I have seen where you sometimes have to reseat the drive for it to work. You should get an error in this case, something like 9xxxxxxxx (a rough estimate of what I remember the error displayed was).

[xnosorrow]

it already worked with win2k before... Here's what actually happen... it was working before with win2k.. a have a spare hdd that i wanted to format, so i removed my hdd with win2k, installed the spare hdd, then boot to win2k installation cd, repartition and then reformat. At 4% of the win2k format, there was an error, like windows cannot use partition or something... it automatically restarted. After POST, there was this high-picthed wistle noise, w/o display on the lcd.. I restarted using the power switch, and then the issue occured.. i returned my hdd with win2k installed, but it also wont work...

[GomJabbar]

I would say the next step is to go to the BIOS EZSetup menu and run system diagnostics. Note that the memory test takes some time to run (several minutes), and may appear that it hung - just be patient.

Offhand, it seems that you have some sort of hardware error. I'm surprised that you are not getting any numeric error messages.

[xnosorrow]

i tried to do a test on all of the components using Easy Setup.. All components are ok... Any other suggestions? Thanks by the way for helping me with this..

[GomJabbar]

Shine a flashlight onto the hard drive connector on the ThinkPad and see if you see any bent pins.

You could try booting the Windows install disk, then go to the command prompt. Do you see a C: drive present? Do you see any files on the C: drive?

[xnosorrow]

i checked the connector, and as far as i can see, there is no bended pins..i also tried to boot to command prompt using a bootable disk and i was able to view the contents of the hdd... this is weird, i can't see any problem with it...