Pen stuck in the laptop! what do i do?

Question

Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet PC - Intel Centrino Duo Core 2 Duo L7500 1.6GHz - 12.1" SXGA+ - 2GB DDR2 SDRAM - 120GB - DVD-Writer (DVDR/RW) - Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth - Windows Vista Business - Black - 776796U $1450 buy.com
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Answer 1

I just had my pen get stuck in my x61t, and didn't want to deal with the hassle of taking/shipping it someplace.  "Remove the label C screws" wasn't a very useful set of instructions for me, so I'm describing the process here.  This should apply to the x61t and x60t.
Basically, the right-click button on the pen has broken (you might not think it is, mine didn't appear broken until the pen became stuck), causing the switch that detects the pen's presence in the pen bay to catch on the hole where the right-click button belongs.  In my case the pen was not stuck due to a problem with the mechanism that normally holds the pen in place (which attaches to the clip on the pen), so you'll maybe have to do something slightly different if you suspect that. You should know if that is the case later because the tip end of the pen won't feel like it is stuck on anything if you try to move it once it is exposed.
To get at the pen compartment, I ended up having to remove the palm rest almost entirely, which requires removing the keyboard. Removing the palm rest isn't probably strictly necessary, but makes it a lot easier.  The keyboard is easy to remove.  It is held by 4 "C" screws on the bottom of the laptop, then put a small screwdriver in one of the small holes marked with a keyboard icon on the bottom of the laptop to pop it up partially.  Once the space bar end of the keyboard is up (you have to pry it out from under the palm rest, it helps to slide the keyboard towards display hinge end of the laptop a little), slide the keyboard towards the palm rest to unhook the top edge.Lift up the keyboard a little, and disconnect the keyboard connector from the laptop.  It should pry up with only a little pressure from your fingernail at the two left corners of the connector.  There is a clear strip of plastic to the right of the connector that looks like it is part of it, but it is separate, leave it alone.  Once the keyboard is up, move it away and you might as well shake out all the dirt someplace while you're at it.
The palm rest requires the "A" screw on the bottom of the laptop near where the pen goes in AND 6 "C" screws to be removed (so now all "C" screws except the two on the display end of the bottom of the laptop are removed).  You can't just remove C screws, you need to remove the "A" screw, this is important!!  Removing all this will loosen up the palm rest, but it is still partially hooked into the case on the left & right sides.  To unhook the edge by the hard drive, I recommend removing the large unlabeled screw next to the microphone jac to remove the hard drive bay cover.  Then you can unhook that side by gently pulling out (to your right) and down on the "hook" part that was previously somewhat inside the bay cover. The other side of the palm rest should release mostly on its own.  
The tricky part now is that the hole for the right-click button of the pen is stuck to the pen switch assemply (which is attached to the laptop, towards the hinge side of the pen bay), while the eraser end of the pen is in the pam rest, so you still can't remove the palm rest all the way.  What I found worked is to gently raise the palm rest without forcing it, just enough so that the tip of the pen can be reached by a finger or tool.  Push on the eraser end of the pen to push the pen farther into the pen bay and, while still pushing on the eraser end, gently reach under the palm rest and pull the now exposed tip of the pen up and towards you. Pushing on the eraser end once or twice while doing this should free the pen to eject normally.  The right-click button will probably shoot off of the pen on its way out.
If you want to instead try to remove the minimum possible (just loosen the palm rest and not remove the keyboard), you need to remove at least the 4 "C" screws on the palm end of the laptop and the one "A" screw.  Raise the palm rest as little as possible without forcing, get a tool in there to pull the tip end of the pen up and toward you, and push the eraser end of the pen.  This didn't unstick the pen for me because I couldn't see what I was doing or needed to do, but is probably possible.
Hope this helps someone.  The maintenance manual for x60t/x61t is at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/documen​t.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-66749 and has some diagrams that help.  Page 83 has a diagram of the pen switch assembly (don't follow those instructions though, you don't have to all that!), and page 68 shows how to remove the palm rest.