Australian CF-18 MK2, does it boot from a thumbdrive?

Greetings fellow Toughbook addicts,

I've have one of these "Australian" CF-18 MK2 incoming (CF-18dhb22ka).
Boy these guys have brought the prices down on used CF-18s! I've lusted after one of these for a couple of years now but until recently they went for way too much money for me to be able to justify the expense.

Now I can't wait for it to get here (it enters the mail today)

I'm going to install Debian Linux with "full" disk encryption.

As I do not own a USB CD-ROM drive I thought I'd ask here if this MK2 can boot from a thumbdrive? And, if that shouldn't be the case, which (slim) external DVD burner is known to work with (and boot) the MK2?

I've been digging through this forum for hours now and it has been very informative. I look forward to some h/w hacking on this baby

 

Coredump... Welcome to the forum. There is no mention in the BIOS about a USB boot... But it has been discussed. You can search for a few of the threads or maybe even check out the stickies. It would be pretty much the same thing for the CF-28 & CF-29 (Some models) anyway.

I know that some have installed windows with a USB thumb drive but your easiest way by far will be to go ahead and buy a USB CD ROM. You can get them for cheap... I think they are all pretty much bootable... All the ones I've ever had will work. But you still might want to check its description.

Keep us posted on the install. I just built a dual boot Sidux/XP Pro system and then screwed up the boot order so I need to redo the start-up... Working with Linux will DEFINITELY make you pull your hair out...

 

Hello Toughbook,

Well, where is the fun in "easy"?
Reading some more threads, here it appears, however, that the MK2 can not boot from a thumbdrive

I don't think so. Long time Linux user and Hacker here. From what I've read on the net so far, I gather that my CF-18 h/w is fully supported.
It's going to be a lot of fun in any case

 

Hi All
I have noticed several posts asking if these will boot to a USB Flash Drive, as yet i have not tried this but they will boot to a USB Hard Drive. I have a USB Hard Drive with a bootable copy of Acronis on it to Backup my Systems and the CF-18 will boot to it no problems at all only took 15 min or so to backup a full image..

Makes my life easier thats for sure.

Phil

 

That is good to know, thank you!
As for the thumbdrive: nope, no luck, I tried.

 

Presumably that is not a free copy of Acronis then (since the free one only lasts 15 days before locking itself out), but a good solution all the same. I didn't know that Acronis was bootable on it's own. I'll be using it when I do the disk upgrade on my CF-28 in about a week's time.

Craig.

 

Hello there,

I just bought a CF-18 and had the same problem: How to install XP without Floppy or CD-ROM. I found the nice tool "WinSetupFromUSB" to put all you need on an USB-Stick and make it bootable.
But my CF-18 did not boot from the USB-Stick. But I found a workaround:

I plugged the harddrive out of the CF-18 and then I was able to boot from my USB-Stick. Just when the stick begins to boot, I plugged in the HD again and the installation goes on...

Hope this helps anybody, it took me almost 1 day to figure this out.

best regards,
Peter

 

You really should not hot-plug an IDE drive. It could fry your controller.

 

You don't have to hot swap if you plug the usb drive in and the start the pc press F2 go to the bios and to the boot selection the usb drive will show up when you press the enter key on the HDD selection, select the usb drive as first boot and away you go.

 

It is a full copy of acronis, it works on all bootable drives, USB Thumbs, USB HDD & DVD/CD. I have a 250GB USB HDD with images of various PC's on it very usefull. Full systerm around 12GB less than 20min to restore.

Phil

 

I bought one of this too, and I'm so happy with it!

I've put Linux on it (the only problem I had was with the touchscreen [solved], and some of the Hotkeys in the front panel...[still not working]), and It rocks!

I'm also using Full disk Encryption, and I thought it couldn't boot from thumbdrive, but IT CAN BOOT from USB!!

"" I repeat Panasonic Toughbook CF-18 MK2 (The australian version ) CAN BOOT from USB thumbdrive !!!

It's a bit tricky and I try to explain how:

- You must insert the USB drive before turning on the PC
- Enter the bios boot menu (F2)
- the USB drive appears inside the "Hard Disk Drive" entry [ there is a plus sign].
- press "ENTER" to show the Hard Disk drives and voilà; you have the internal hard drive AND the USB drive.
- Now put the cursor on the USB drive entry and press F6, then press F10 to save and exit.

If the USB thumbdrive is bootable, the system will boot from there.

Now there are 2 problems....

Problem 1.
If you don't do the steps above, the bios will start with the internal drive...and if the internal drive has no bootable partitions ( we would expect the bios to boot from the USB drive) , the bios will skip the usb drive...[I THINK THIS IS A BUG]

Problem 2. [consequence of the problem1]
if the next time you boot, the USB drive is not connected, the bios will switch back and boot from internal drive...but with Full Disk Encryption, we cannot boot directly from it...

So you sould enter the bios every time this append.

I solved this annoying thing installing only the boot loader in the mbr of the internal drive, and pointing it to the external USB drive. [i've done this with lilo, but I think grub would do the same]

Note the just the first stage is loaded from the MBR...the second stage ( and the kernel is loaded from USB)

Hope you solved the problem.

 

I tend to pull my hair out way more when i have to touch a machine with Windows on it

 

I have a similar saying, only it's more like "I tend to pull my hair out way more when I have to touch a machine with AN OS on it."

I mean REALLY. Does my DVD player NEED to have an OS? My CABLE BOX? My FLEEKING CAR STEREO?!?!?

Why should I have to wait for it to BOOT so I can eject the d@mn disc?

mnem
EVERY OS SUCKS...

 

Lmao that is too funny