My IBM 600e LAPTOP won't BOOT up.  On starting, a small picture of a paddlock appears.  When I hit enter I get an error 173 and error 163 and the computer won't do anything.  When I see the paddlock picture, it allows me to type in a password or something up to 23 characters.  It allows me to do this 3 times and then it locks me out.  Any ideas what may be causing this?  I just replaced my battery yesterday and the NEXT time I turned on the computer, I had these problems.  Any help will be APPRECIATED.  Thanks.If that comes up before the bios screen, you may be SOL. Those machines stored the start up password in a seperate ROM chip. Even a reformat will not change it. Your only options are to have IBM fix it or search on some of the geek boards to see if someone has a figured out how to override it.2k,

Thanks for your help.  How do I contact the geek boards?Give the below site a LOOK. :-?



http://cgi.ebay.com/ThinkPad-Maintenance-Disk-for-T20-600-770-A20-etc_W0QQitemZ250023910904QQcmdZViewItemGenerally you are looking at a motherboard replacement. I have heard rumors of a fix, but have never witnessed one for a system password lock. That's part of the security that was built in.