Best drive options for CF29 Mk4 HDD or SDD - advice from those in the know please

There I was, happily managing with my Mk1, 160Gb hard drive and a couple of externals for movies and photos. XP working fine. Not the fastest thing in the world but it's traveled all over with me and never let me down. Anyway I bought a new camera and was struggling to run photoshop - it used to work fine on an apple back in the 90s - why is it so hungry now?

So before I knew it I bought a MK4 at a silly price on ebay - £99 inc shipping.1.5Gb ram Bluetooth, SD card reader, sim card thingy for gprs. 5 hour battery life.This thing is ex utility but must have been reserve stock because it is mint. Sadly not touchscreen but I'll swap screens when I find one.

Came with a Hitachi 80Gb HDD and I've put windows 7 on it. Originally just planned to move my old drive accross with a bit of jiggery pokery but this is as good a time as any to move into the twentieth century.

So...
I have sata 500Gb HDD and a media bay caddy.
An ide to sata adapter for the panasonic caddy.

What would you do????
SDD for operating system? if so which one?
500Gb in media bay for documents?

Advice for those who know please

 

Did you say MK4 and no touchscreen , do you only have 256 on the mother board ?? then you got one of them one's that take the 2GB stick of memory :thumbsup: . Read this http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/451104-everyone-told-me-not-do.html

 

Well I was hoping so but how to find out? System info just says 1.5Gb ram.
As the configurator for old models is long gone I'd kind of put it out of my mind.

edit. available physical memory 278Mb

 

What is your full model number

 

Cf29L3Q71BE

 

Cf-29L3Q71BE
L : Pentium mobile 778 1.6GHz,
3: 13.3" XGA
Q: 80GB HD & 512MB RAM
7: ???
1 : 2GHz: CDPD & GPS T-Mobile
B : WinXP
E : U.K.

CF-29 - ToughWiki

 

Thanks for that.
I presume that means 516 on the board and not 256 + a 256 stick? Makes sense really as I'm showing 1.5Gb total
No 2Gb ram for me then. Atleast with Windows 7 I can use readyboost which seems to make a decent difference.

 

Yes readyboost does make a big difference on the 29 BUT it will not work IF you plan on using a SSD in your 29.

 

I would spend the money and buy a real pata(ide) SSD for in the main caddy.

The sata to pata HDD adapters are not reliable enough for me. The sata media bay caddy probably won't boot. The sata media bay caddy may have access issues even if you don't boot from it. Panasonic bios's do not seem play real well with HDD drive adapters..

If I needed more storage space, I would find an internal usb port and put a large (or 2 large) usb flash drives inside the laptop. If you don't use WLAN, there is a lot of space to tape 2 usb sticks.

This is expensive, but would be fast and reliable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1K60RW7605

This isn't as expensive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1K60RW7578

 

Thanks Shawn,
It will probably have to be the smaller ssd as prices here in the UK still seem quite high.
I'm a bit dissapointed to hear the media bay caddy isn't a good idea, I thought there were good reports.
But you might be talking best practice which, after all, is what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the help

Chris

 

Well the sata to pata adapters of any kind just don't boot well at all. If they boot (pass bios), they are inconsistent. Sometimes they boot and other times they don't. One worked very well as a storage drive in my cf51. The same setup locks up my cf52. I put an ide to ide media bay caddy in the cf52 and have had zero problems since.

I just had an idea you could try if you have time. Get a sata drive and put it in the media bay caddy.Try loading some emulation software on the sata drive. I am thinking of the type of software that is used to bypass bios drive size limitations. I have no idea if it will work, but it's worth a try.........I don't know why the bios locks up. All you get is that silly blue Panasonic screen...WHICH ANNOYS ME GREATLY....I want the full text of the bios post. Anyway, good luck

 

Quick update...
I put a Samsung 500Gb sata hard drive in the media bay caddy and it's showing up as a usable drive in device manager and as second primary drive in BIOS. Capacity is recognised as 500Gb.
I haven't had chance to order an ssd yet, just using the quick install of windows 7 on the 60Gb hitachi drive that came with the machine. I'm getting tempted to fit the Samsung in the caddy with the pata/sata adapter - might try later today if I have time.
One problem I have though is I haven't got and unknown device to use to install the hotkey drivers. I'm assuming windows 7 just put something there. Anybody have any thoughts - I have searched and searched and read everybodys threads on hotkeys but couldn't find anyone with this problem.