Thinkpads Forum

i recently bought a 600e that was firmly and permanently locked into a heavy docking station. it came with lots of extras like the outboard floppy drive, case etc. but the seller at the tag sale had no key for the dock. i tried every similar one i had lying around back at my place with no luck. i heard i could buy one on the 'net but i wasn't sure about the code on the bottom they needed and didn't want the hassle of getting it wrong. i brought it into an IT dept on the off chance they knew a trick or two. they poked around for a spare key and came up empty, then told me they use a hardened screwdriver for these jobs, just shove it in and snap it off. "here's your key" they yucked, grabbing an old craftsman screwdriver and waving it under my nose. won't that wreck the dock i asked? "yup" they grinned. yeh well...

i passed.

i brought it home, straightened out a paper clip, bent it into a long narrow U with flared ends and went to work. in less than 10 mins i had picked the lock, freed my thinkpad and saved my docking station.

the secret was to first push back the gate on the inside right of the key shaft, then tickle the pins opposite, using both ends of the paper clip simultaneously, stopping occasionally to insert a screwdriver for turning torque to check progress. it's very do-able. just use a good light.

i'm glad i didn't let those guys break the docking station and i saved the 20 bucks a key would cost, which happened to be what i paid for the thinkpad. not bad for a saturday tag sale special.

My computer wasn't on mine when I lost the key, but I still wanted to use the dock. I took it to a Mexican lock shop and they opened it in a few minutes for five dollars.

It's probably good that I lost that key, then: it's a pretty useless feature for a home user, and even for a business user it's not like a thief can't just steal the computer and the dock. Kensington locks aren't particularly secure, and there's no other built-in method that I know of for securing the dock to a workspace.