CF-27 Help required, lots thereof!

I've just bought a Panasonic Toughbook CF-27 Mk1.

I've purchased some upgrade RAM to take it to 160mb

However i have a few questions:

• How hard is it to upgrade the HDD? (does anybody have instructions?)
• Does the laptop have an internal mini-pci slot?
• Does it have a normal PCMCIA slot?
• Where on earth in the UK can i get a CD drive?

I have searched and found that apparently the max is 60gb, will it go larger with xp?

I've bought it as a project and would appreciate some help!

 

Changing out the HD is pretty easy, you need a P00 screwdriver to open the caddy and then I usually carefully push the HD out of the gel from the bottom in one of the corners. As for the max. size.. The biggest HD I put in a 27 is a 60GB so I'm not sure if that's a maximum limit or not.

There is NOT an internal Mini-PCI slot. There is an internal mini PCI option card that will physically fit in a 27 Mk1, but I have not had any luck getting the computer to recognize it. Even on the Mk2 and MK3 it seems to be of questionable value.

It does have two normal PCMCIA slots that exit out the side. It should also be noted that there is an internal PCMCIA option card, and this WILL work on a Mk1, but they're kind of hard to find. I had a bunch of them for a while but sold them off any only kept one for my personal experimentation.

Try ebay first.. If you come up empty, I can put you in touch with a UK reseller that probably has them.

 

While you can put a larger hard drive in, you risk random lockups if you go any higher than 60. They weren't meant to handle large capacity drives.

 

Thankyou so much, makes my life easier. Is it an ordinary 2.5" notebook drive?

Thanks for the headsup on the PCMCIA slot(s) Wifi here i come

I'll keep you posted.

 

Regular IDE notebook drives are what I've used. I've had no problem with them.

 

Where's this internal pcmcia slot that you speak of? I haven't seen one whilst tearing it appart.

 

Be sure you note, ATA/IDE drive, SATA will not work.

 

Affirmative, its hard to find an IDE/ATA6 drive that is 7200rpm, in stock anywhere...if anyone knows of a good source, post it up!!

 

It was optional, and I don't think it was a very popular option. Yours probably doesn't have it. It was used to hold a radio modem card ("Spider II CDPD radio modem") on certain so-equipped 27s. Others use an option card with a radio module integrated directly onto the card. Mk3's and Mk4's with an internal 56K modem have a mini PCI modem card mounted on a Mini PCI adapter board in this space. This is the board that, inexplicably, seems ONLY to work successfully with the Aztech modem.

 

Mine has the mini-pci modem...the ones that have the PCMCIA slot, can you put a diffrent card, such as a wireless card, in it? Its a P3 500, and the sound card works....must be a rare beast..

 

Hey guys.

It came today and is in pretty good nick!

One problem missing any sort of media drive!!!

Is £35 a good price for a Vdd272 DVD-ROM drive?

Does it need drivers? (if so where do i get them?)
Will it work with linux?​

And just a regular IDE/ATA notebook drive will work right?

Regards,
mad

 

Mad, 2.5" IDE/ATA/PATA/ATAxxx they are all the same. The only one I'm not sure of is the ATAxxx, ie.ATA100. I'm not sure if there is a number that is too high for a CF-27. It has to do with speed and I just don't know. Good luck, the 27 is a good little machine, I use several to do real work every day. If L35 is around $70US that's not a bad price for a CD/RW drive.
Edit: Looked at your post again, Very good price for that drive.

 

Thanks for the info, i'll order one right away. What RAM fits the Mk.1? Anybody know? is it PC100 144pin SDRAM Sodimm? I know that there are models specific to the toughbook, but because of the 266mhzx processor doesn't that mean it should need pc66 RAM?

How do you get the touchscreen working? < the panasonic drivers are for windows 95 and don't work properly in 98se and i really would like to get this working.
EDIT: Wohoo! Success with wifi! i'm currently posting this message from my toughbook using my belkin pcmcia wireless card! It is surprisingly good web browsing for something with a 266mhz CPU and 32mb of RAM (soon to be 160mb).

Desperately need a media drive as i really want to install damn small linux!

Question: Why can't i display anything greater than 16 colours at 800*600? The moment i select anything else it resets the screen resolution to 640*480 and 16 colours and then won't reset again unless windows is re-installed?

 

Mad, See if you can find this on panasonic.ca, its for W2000 but it might work. If not, I'll dig deeper and can e-mail the driver to you.
cf27_mk2_w2k_tscreen.exe
cf27_mk3_w2k_mouse.exe
Driver for Fujitsu Takamisawa Touchpad/Touchscreen. I have a bunch of these I'm going to send to Modly and I'll keep an eye out for any MK1 stuff. I've never looked through all the drivers since I've never had a MK1.
Edit: Just pulled out a disk I forgot about that I bought about 5 years ago. It's got 91mb of drivers and service manuals on it. I should probably just burn a copy and mail it to Modly.

 

Thanks, I tried a Fujitsu touch panel driver to no avail (I got/get confused by all the port information etc.) and the common 98se driver which actually turns out to be a 95 driver. Will give those drivers a try in the morning (tis late here). Hehe until today i'd never had a toughbook and i've had the mk1 wirelessly browsing the internet very well which shocked me. My RAM upgrade comes tomorrow 160mb ahoy! Is it by any chance a disk similiar to one of those on ebay?

I really, really appreciate everybodies help here, thanks!

 

I don't think any one is selling this disk on eBay. As I said, I bought it about 5 years ago when I got my first toughbooks. There was very little going on at the time on eBay. There was this guy out in Mesa, Arizona who was the only one really selling parts. I just bought 3 from a guy in England. Very disappointing, Mostly just owner manuals and such tripe. As I said, this disk is 91mb of stuff, bios, drivers, modification updates, and service manuals. That's with a lot of zipped files. I'll burn a copy tonight and get it off to Modly. I'll look at the MK1 drivers while I'm at it. You are looking for touchscreen drivers for 98 or ME? My first eBay toughbook was a CF-28 MK2 with a combo drive,XP, 512mb ram, 30gb hard drive, in you couldn't tell it from new condition. Paid $138 shipped. I've been chasing another deal like that ever since.

 

Thanks, i'm looking for Mk1 touchscreen drivers (Video drivers aswell the graphics are temperamental and stuck in 16 colour mode argh) for 98se, although i've just wiped the hardrive. That deal is incredible, i paid £44) shipped for my MK1 + printer + briefcase (it does look new though). Now most things are more expensive in england but what deal you got!

 

Let's see if I can insert this file.
View attachment 17707
I think this is the list of what's on this disk?

 

looks good but unfortunately i have deleted the MBR and because it has no optical drive i can't re-install the OS! I plan on getting round this by buying a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter and running the 98se install disk onto the toughbook hardrive (but i need to buy one first).

I have yet another question. If i was to buy a Sierra Wireless Aircard 850 how hard would it be to, run a cable from the pcmcia slot aerial adapter up the side of the screen (internally) and buy and install the aerial attachment for the CF-27? < that make sense?

Where would i get a CF-27 aerial in the UK?

Just a thought.

 

I just picked up 3 off ebay...hmm... 7200 60gig

Hope I didn't step on anyones toes whilst bidding.