CF-27 update from Win98SE to Win 2K Pro

Hi guys.
Have you ever been to chicken to try to improve something in case you lose even what you started out with?
I'm in that position right now.
I have a CF-27 Mk 2 running Win98SE.
I also have a Win 2K Pro Unlimited disk
My Toughbook has a DVD drive that works.
It also has a Netgear wireless PC card that supposedly needs a P3 to work but which connects me to the internet anyway.

What I also need is confirmation from you guys.
You see, my fear is that I'll stick the Win 2K disk in the DVD drive and let it do its thing. Then, at some point, the new installation will have erased all the info on my hard disk prior to installing the new version of windows and will make itself reboot. I fully expect that at this exact point, the laptop will stop recognising that there is a DVD drive stuck in the left hand side of the Toughbook and point blank refuse to go any further and leaving me with a Toughbook with a blank hard drive.
If that happened, I may as well chuck it in the bin because getting it fixed in a shop would cost more than the laptop is worth.
Grrrrrrr.
Any advice appreciated.
Steve

 

1. make a restore disk of your system first to ease your mind.
2. it won't happen, you'll be fine.
3. if your laptop doesnt support WIN2k, restore back using the disk you created in step 1 above.
4. All else fails, you can restore your HD externally to a pc.

Here's to you *raises his glass*...

 

Or... you can pick up a cheap 2.5" HHD, and install to that... If it works, YEY... you upgraded the OS AND your storage... if NOT... then just put your OLD HDD back in it.

mnem<~~~ Big fan of old school ~~~<<<

 

I like this option more than "Create a restore ......." 'cos that sounds like the work of Lucifer and beyond my capabilities, lol

One question though, will any old 2.5" IDE hard drive do or does it need to be a special kind for these Toughbooks?
The name PATA is in my head and won't go away.
Thanks, giuys

 

Any 2.5" IDE (ATA, not SATA) will work.

 

Thanks, Trooper.
**Heads for eBay yet again**

While I'm here, can I tell you what else I just won on eBay?
I just won three laptops in one auction.
OK, they may not be the prettiest or the most modern laptops you'll ever see but 2 of them are Toughbooks and one is a Fujitsu. The Toughbooks are model numbers CF-35 and CF41
All that for a total cost of ........ Nah, I daren't tell you. You will need to check out the auction itself just so you know I'm not telling porkies. (Porkies = Pork pies = Lies)

Auction number 170418642044

 

Welcome to the toughbook sub-forum, Steve. Quite a score for 3 laptops, made better if you can get them to work.

In case you didn't realize, the CF-41's CDD's latch is on the right side, IIRC, near the palm rest and drive itself is located under the keyboard.

Toughbooks are addictive... don't say we didn't tell ya. BTW, the 27 will run Win2kPro, albeit somewhat slow.
Ron in SG

 

Hi ToughNut.
Yeah, I had heard on the grapevine that Win2k Pro was a runner on these CF-27, especially with 384 mb of RAM. Hopefully I will be able to use some USB pen drives etc.
It's a small world.
Our middle son worked for a lingerie company in Bangkok but was made redundant when the parent English company went belly up. He has been there for 10 -11 years and married a local girl. She is a teacher but when he was made redundant, she gave up her teaching at a huge school and they opened a pie shop. It took 2 weeks to get all the equipment sourced and installed but inside the first month of proper production and sales, all the gear was paid for. There's nothing that an ex-Pat Brit likes more than a Steak and Kidney pudding using real suet and it's the only place in town for a meat and potato pie, lol
I won't advertise but if you see a big sign in a shop window saying "Pie Shop", go in and speak to the guy behind the counter. Just say, "Hi Ray, Have you had any morning buckets of water recently?

That will freaqk him out 'cos it refers to when he was a kid and I had to get him up for school. One warning, two warnings and next was a bucket of cold water. It was a bugger to sleep in the next night as well, lol

 

If I'm heading up north, I'll tell him dad sent me Meanwhile, update us how you're gettin' on with the 27.

Ron in SG

 

There isn't much updating to do.
I'm guilty of being in a lazy mood heading up to Christmas and the New Year celebrations. Also, I stored all my "I won't need this for a while" computer stuff in a load of boxes and stored them in a shed in the back garden. What I didn't realise was that when it snowed, the track from back door to shed would be where all the snow from the roof lands. In other words, it's about 3 feet deep and, to be honest, it will probably melt before i dig my way to the shed, lol.
In the meantime, I have ordered 3 x 10gb IDE laptop hard drives. One for Win 2K pro. One for a low level Linux distro but I don't know which one yet and one spare.
I am also keeping my eyes peeled for another CF-27 with a touch screen.

 

Nice. I miss ebay.co.uk so much since moving to the States. Ebayers on this side of the pond tend to sell everything for 99c with about $1000 shipping for some reason.

 

Well, if you're keen on Win2k do install it on a separate HDD (i read that you bought some). I ran 2k for a while on a 200MHz Pentium MMX overclocked to 292MHz (i believe i have the only MMX like that in the world), with a whopping 96MB of SIMM RAM. It ran perfectly well, but that computer only needed to run three pieces of software apart from Windows itself. And btw, the benchmarks on that thing were stunning. I won't tell the numbers coz you won't believe them, but i do have the pics saved somewhere.

Anyway my two cents. The internet is going to be slow on such a machine regardless of OS. Blame it on Flash. However if you are willing to give up Flash and other goodies, there is a browser called OffByOne, which will deliver the web at blazing speeds to your little laptop. When you really need functionality that OffByOne lacks, you can keep a separate browser handy. I recommend Opera.

Don't expect to be watching youtube anyway, but i'm fairly sure that's not what you're trying to do.