Can't boot my Thinkpad R40

If your laptop appears to boot up and the hard disk LEDflashes, then the problem is probably a back light fault. This can be a faultyinverter or a faulty CCFL lamp. Please click on this link and follow myinstructions to identify the fault and possible fix :- http://www.fixya.com/support/r3598095-faulty_laptop_lcd_screen

Hard Disk Password

The hard-disk password (HDP) protects the data on your removable hard disk drive from being accessed by unauthorized persons.
Supervisor Password

The supervisor password protects the system information in Easy-Setup from being changed by unauthorized persons.
How to Reset an IBM ThinkPad Power On Password using Software

If you can boot the IBM ThinkPad, KeyMaker will recover the BIOS password.
How to Reset an IBM ThinkPad Power On Password Using Hardware

If you cannot boot the ThinkPad, you will have to reset the IBM ThinkPad password via hardware.

If only the power-on password is set, do the following to remove the power-on password.

1. Power off the computer
2. Remove the DIMM cover on the bottom side of the computer.
3. Short-circuit the two password pads or put a jumper on the contacts to short the circuit.
4. Under the short-circuit condition, power on the computer and wait until the POST ends. After the POST ends, the password prompt does not appear. The power-on password is removed.
5. Reinstall the DIMM cover.

If both the power-on password and the supervisor password are set, do the following to remove the passwords:

1. Power on the computer by pressing and holding F1.
2. Enter the supervisor password. The Easy-Setup menu appears.
3. Click on the Password icon.
4. Click on the Power on icon.
5. Enter the supervisor password and press the Space bar.
6. Press Enter twice.
7. Click on Exit; then click on Restart.

If the the ram is the problem of your system, there should be a power on light on the system. indicating that some of the component of the system is not working correctly. But since you mentioned there is no light, it is the possibility that the problem is the motherboard itself.

The problem is that you need to boot up the laptop with the CD as the first boot device so you can then install Windows XP.
If you press F12 a boot up you will get a list of alternate boot devices oher than the hard disk as the first boot device, which was set up in the BIOS. Select the CD as the first boot device and when prompted press the space bar to start the CD.

press F1 on boot up and get into the bios, reset defaults and then chane the boot order to the CD/ROM, save changes, reboot and you should be able to install XP

hope this works

kind regards

you can buy ext. hd case to back up your things, if your ibm can't boot then might be your motherboard got problem or graphic card.

This is a common problem, that involves the power management system on the motherboard. There are few places that can fix the problem, and they will cost you more than replacing the motherboard. I'm going to suggest replacing the motherboard, it's much cheaper and easier than trying to repair the old board. You can find one at a decent price on Ebay. Here's a link for the hardware maintenance manual for the T20 if you would like to replace the board yourself.

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/62p9631.pdf

sounds like there is a problem in the hard drive. Go to google and search for Hirens Boot CD it is about $10 but its well worth it. Boot from this CD and run the Check Disc Utility(chkdsk) and some of the virus tools, this might fix the problem, otherwise it sounds like a bad CPU or faulty RAM may be causing this broblem

This will fix your autoplay:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c680a7b6-e8fa-45c4-a171-1b389cfacdad&displaylang=en

Activity light displays the hard drive activity, which means autoindexing is working.Also, the disk may need defragging.

Which will also make the laptop boot longer.

If I understand you correctly you turned off your laptop and since then have not been about to boot up normally, occasionally getting a blue screen. Typically the blue screen also has some type of error message, can you tell us what that is? You indicate that booting from the CD drive is not possible, is that because you don?t have a working drive? In any case this sounds like a problem with system files or possible a device driver and a CD drive is almost certainly going to be necessary. Let us know the answers to this questions and any other pertinent history relating to this issue and we?ll see if we can help.