CF-19 Mk4 recovery vs normal install

Hi all is there any difference between using the Panasonic recovery dvd and loading w7 and all the drivers ?

Thanks

 

AFAIK there is no difference as long as you use the Panasonic drivers in the order Panasonic tells in their documentation. Only difference is that it takes time to manually install all the drivers and a recovery dvd doesn't need much attention. I really prefer the dvd's over manual labor

But I've got a small 80Gb orso SSD that contains a clean install with all the software I need professionally. This way I just have to make a block copy to my regular SSD and I have a clean new install in less then an hour. After that i copy my data back and I'm up and running again in about 2 hours tops. If you do a lot of tinkering, happen to run into a ransom Trojan or a drive fails, you're back in business in no time.

Compared to installing windows by hand, 10.000.000 updates from windows, (about 3 hours?), all the Panasonic drivers then office, updates, adobe, updates, other specific work program's and updates it could well cost you a day's work or even more.

 

Thanks for the info, is there just 1 w7 recovery dvd for all CF-19 Mk4's or does it depend on model number ?

 

I do know there is a 32bit and 64bit DVD for sure. You can call Heartland Services and if they have one it's $35.00 shipped to you next day shipping. When calling you will need your full model number.

 

Here.....
I have no connection.....

Panasonic Toughbook CF 19 Recovery DVD MK4 Windows 7 Pro with RAM Chip | eBay

 

So that will come with ALL or 99% of drivers loaded ?

Thanks

 

Yes........

 

Your 19 does have a W7 COA on the bottom of it...yes ??. If it's XP then it will not work

 

Yes it does have the W7 COA on the bottom of it

Thanks

 

Ok ...your are good to go. :thumbsup:

 

If I remember right the only drivers not installed are GOBI/WWAN drivers and GPS. I know it's like that on the older machines unless they have changed something on the newer machines.

 

My mk5 has wwan and it's drivers are installed with the recovery dvd.

 

Thanks for the info guy's.

Next question, I have a 1Tb hard drive fitted that has been partitioned, If i get the XP recovery dvd for the Mk4 can I just load that and again ALL driver will be there, I do have xp loaded on 1 partition but I cant get the dual touch to work


Thanks

 

XP uses different drivers than Win7. If your unit has a Win7 COA then the XP recovery disk will not work.

The correct Win7 recovery DVD I linked is the simplest and fastest solution.
The cheaper solution is load Win7 and then manually load each driver individually. This will take well over an hour and lead to lots of frustration. If the drivers are not loaded in a specific order they will not work properly. Even then things don't always work properly the first time around....
The $24.99 for the CORRECT disk is well spent...

 

Ive ordered the recovery dvd, thats on it's way, Thanks

I'll just carry on using the XP that loaded on 1 partiton the way it is, it all works apart from TS but that no big deal

Thanks

 

When you use the Panasonic recovery DVD it checks your 19 to see if you are using the right DVD. So if your 19 when new came with W7 and you try to use a XP Panasonic recovery disk it will tell you that it's the wrong one and will not run it. On my 53 I just reloaded W7 with the recovery disk and it took about 70 minutes. If I just used a regular W7 install disk and loaded the drivers by hand it would of took me about 3+ hours if everything went right and trust me it never does...at least for me it never does.

 

Thanks for the info, I know it takes a long time, ive done it on the CF-18's and all the CF-19's Ive had over the years & as you say it never goes right the 1st time, it'll be nice with the recovery dvd not having to spend hours on it

The thing that Im real pi**ed off about is I had a recovery partition on the original 160Gb hard drive that it was shipped with, after the memory problem I managed to load a fresh w7 on that h\drive just as a test and it deleted the recovery partition, we live and learn !!