I have an IBM Thinkpad that was given to me that is not booting up. When I start the laptop, it sits on the splash screen for a bit, then asks for a floppy disk and/or to hit F1 (not sure which), but when I do hit F1, it gives me a blank screen for about 20 seconds, then comes up with "I999050" in the upper left hand corner of the screen and that's it. I was thinking possibly that it had some sort of system crash and was asking for a boot disk, but it didn't like the old Win98 start-up disk that I had.

You need to post the model number, and the type number, the last of which is on a black label on the bottom of the machine, near the bar code. With that info, assuming it's new enough, we can direct you to IBM's support site where you can download the user and the "hardware maintenance manual." The number you posted sounds like the RAM, but it doesn't sound right. For whatever reason, it's not booting from the hard drive. Had it been working, or did you just buy it? Do you know how to get into the bios "easy setup?" check the drive boot order. START WITH THE MACHINE OFF, PRESS AND HOLD the "F1" key WHILE HOLDING "F1" turn the machine on AND CONTINUE TO HOLD the "F1" key. You should see "easy setup" Click on "start up" Click on "power on" Click "reset" if need be, then select what you want for devices. I usually put floppy, CDROM, and HDD Hit OK Hit EXIT Hit RESTART Hit OK HERE http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=LWIK-3SR4PW&selectarea=SUPPORT&tempselected=5 is an example of the error list for the 600X, part of which probably applies for other models. This info is in the hardware manual for your particular machine, but we need to know what that is If that error is indeed a "system board" error, things could be bad, but before I start condemming the system board, I'd do some diagnostics, part of which are in the bios---again, refer to the manual Also, strip the machine down. Pull EVERYTHING you can out of it, including the hdd, extra memory, PCMCIA cards. You may, later, even want to pull LAN/modem card out. Try booting to a known good CD or floppy

I have a think pad 600. it won't boot either. I did a check in the Bios and came up with a memory err 21 message any ideas on how to fix