CF-28 Help with HDD caddy and GEL

G'day All,
I am new to this post and have recently purchased a second-hand model no: CF-28PTJAZQM toughbook (ex-military), so the HDD and caddy were removed before sale. Specs are 800Mhz, 512MB Ram, touch screen and I will be running Windows XP Pro. I have a couple of questions for the techno gurus:

- Firstly, is a 80GB Fujitsu 5400RPM HDD a good replacement choice. I have read that the Hitachi Travelstar 7200 RPM is better but they are just about impossible to get here in Australia.

- Second, I have checked the FAQ for the CF-28 and read the article for replacing the HDD and caddy. CF-28 101 - How to Change Your Hard Drive
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=188522

It is very informative, but the photos did not load. Is their a trick I am missing or can this be rectified by a moderator (Toughbook). I need the photos as well (I'm a picture tells a thousand words boy).

- Lastly, is their some replacement compound that can be used in place of the standard GEL that is encapsulated on the OEM HDD. I guess I would like to know what other people have done to improve the shock capabilities. Is there a molded GEL or polymer compound for the HDD in the States that I can purchase. If so, is their a web address that somebody could post up for me.

Cheers

 

The 5400 RPM hard drive is a great idea... I'm personally not a fan of "Fujitsu" as I've put 10's of thousads of hard drives in laptops in my career and Fujitsu is the brand that comes out broken most of the time. I'd stick with an IBM travelstar or Western Digital or a Seagate. Once again that is just what I have seen. The 7200 RPM drives are damn near impossible to get these days according to most of our CF-29er's out their (I had a 7200 RPM 100GB Toshiba in my 29, but that was back in the day when they were popular). As far as the caddy is concerned, you would want to invest $50 and just get the Panasonic one as comeing up with your own gell/foam probably won't work too well. Besides the gel, the caddy also comes with the adapter cable needed to even hook the drive up... at the bare minimum you would need that, and usually when you get that you get the caddy too... see here: http://cgi.ebay.com/Panasonic-Tough...hash=item220261882011&_trksid=p3286.m14.l1318 & http://cgi.ebay.com/Panasonic-CF-28...hash=item330257167795&_trksid=p3286.m14.l1318 one up for bid for $70 with a 30GB drive. Also another great place to look would be here on NBR Forums in the Buy/Sell/Trade section.

Good luck!

 

zest4life,
Personally I'd get a Hitachi 5400rpm drive if you can't get a 7200 and you probably can't. The subject of hd caddies has been kicked around here quite a bit and you basically just have to suck it up and find one on eBay. Sometimes you get lucky and can get one for $70-80. Don't worry about the gel, it almost always comes with the caddy. Be sure you get the cable, they're as tough to find as the caddy and are very specific to the CF-28. You won't be making one! Welcome to the forum. If TB cant find his pictures, I think I have a PDF of the swap somewhere.
Cap

 

capt.dogfish let me know if you want me to put the pictures/PDF on the Toughbook server.

 

Thanks for the welcome guys. I have a steep learning curve ahead of me.

I suppose I wasn't clear enough about the HDD caddy. I do have one ready to go and it does have the GEL pack included. Not sure about the cable though. Is that the connector attached to a copper coloured circuit board. I purchased all of the above direct from Panasonic - Australia (NEW + costing an arm and a leg)

As stated earlier, if the photos are available, they will be very valuable to me as I work through this process of installing the HDD to the caddy. A pdf file with pictures is also okay. If the size permits maybe it can be emailed to me direct.

I might be able to get my hands on a NEW Hitachi Travelstar 7200rpm 60GB. Just waiting to here back from the supplier.

cheers

 

The 7200rpm drive is really worth it in a CF-28, you won't believe how much faster it will be. I recommend the Hitachi as lots of us have used them and they seem to be just right, low heat, quiet, very low power consumption adjustable on the desk top, etc. I couldn't find the pictures on this computer, if TB really has lost them maybe I'll scan the copy I printed. The only hard part is folding the copper sheet around the cable. It's easy, just hard to describe if you didn't take it apart. I'll look some more and post back tomorrow. The cable plugs into the hd and wraps around and out the back of the caddy with a sort of right angle connector which slides up and down in the small box on the back of the caddy.
Cap

 

capt.dogfish and JB007Rules, thanks for the advice on the drives.

If either one of you is able to follow up with those pictures or pdf file, that would be appreciated.

Perhaps I can send you a sample of Australia's favourite spread; " Vegemite". It's great on toast and fresh white bread.

You guys over in the States are just spoiled with the abundance of toughbook parts on eBay. I had a look tonight. 875 items, just for the CF-28. I would go on a shopping spree if I was over there. But then I would seriously consider buying a CF-30.
cheers

 

Welcome to the forum and sorry for having no pictures to go with the post. I switched servers a while back and don't have the time to get them all back up. I'll try to find the pictures and put together a PDF that we can park somewhere... The CF-28 caddy is fairly easy... It will only work one way when it goes back together. You may want to try just clipping the connector onto the hard drive and then fit it into the toughbook without any caddy... Then you will see the orientation (once you verify it works!) that the drive must be in. Then it is just a matter of packing the gel casing corectly.

I just started a full-time job and haven't had time to do anything but that lately... I should be of on Friday... I'll see if I can find them then...

 

I managed to scan a PDF of TB's great post on the 28 HD swap. It should email ok. PM me your email and I'll send them off tonight when I'm on the cable, not the air card. JB007, PM me and I'll send it off for you to post. Anyone been able to get on Modly's site lately? I can't seem to get it to load.
Cap

 

The kid in the middle looks creepy lol

 

Well, here it is. I'd be happy to email it to any one if it doesn't post right here.

View attachment 21728

Rick, Thanks again for doing this in the first place.

zest4life, Do NOT under any circumstances send me any Vegamite! Yes, I have had it in Tasmania, and as much as I love Aussies and Kiwis, The attraction of that stuff is lost on me!

Rob, I'll email it off to you shortly.

Cap

The link will no longer work. I can only keep so much stuff on the forums server and wanted to post some other pictures. If for some reason you can not download the PDF from Rob's site (see below) please feel free to PM me and I'll email it to you.

 

I posted it here for you all : http://www.robsnetworks.com/toughbook/CF-28 HDD Swap.pdf

 

Thanks again guys, I was able to download the HDD tutorial from Robs site . You guys are unbelievable. Your quick friendly service is testament to the comradarie and information sharing on this site. The internet is GRAND, what would life be like without it.

I have a spare 2.5 inch 40gb Fujitsu mounted in an external drive. I'll use this temporarily until I get my hands onto a Travelstar 7200RPM. It can be my TEST/Crash bed dummy.

I must admit, I have some American colleagues where I work here in Canberra and they categorically DO NOT like Vegemite. It was the same when I worked in UK for 6 months, so I'll keep you all safe and won't send you any.

cheers

 

I would advise against any IBM or Hitachi drive. I've had to deal with a cluster that used those drives, and after having lost literally dozens, I've sworn off of them. I then read the details of the lawsuit about the IBM DeskStar drives, and how IBM knew they were bad but decided with better marketing they could sell them anyway and the profits would outweigh any lawsuits...I'll never trust their drives again.

My "new" ToughBook was shipped to me from ebay by the seller just placing it in a box with no packing material (arrived hanging out the side). Any other laptop would have been destroyed, but I still did not trust the HDD.

I replaced the still-working Fujitsu with a Seagate 5400RPM. Pretty easy to replace, just take your time so as not to tear anything.

The 7200RPM drives are nice, but they seemed to take more power.

 

How can people here not know about Vegemite? What about the 1982 "Men At Work" album Business As Usual? I learned about it then.

Am I really that old?

 

You aussies have funny tastes.
Us canucks have our own too.
Canadian bacon
Molson beer
And my favourite.
Crown Royal canadian whisky
Yummy.

 

Zest4life,
You're right about the guys being extremely helpful here. If not for them, I probably won't go beyond swapping RAM, let alone near-total disassembly (because I was curious). Lots of cool mods that you can do to the 28; internal wifi, gps, cd drive swap, just to name a few. Do a search and you'll find more than you'll ever need to know about your new toy.

As an aside, the local grocery store does stock that dark gooey stuff Actually, both Vegemite and Marmite. My kids do ok with it but obviously don't enjoy it as much as the kid in the picture (pretty decent soup stock though). Like blue cheese, wasabe, balut, century eggs and caviar, it's all a matter of acquired taste.

Trimble,
Similar experience with IBM drives but frankly, with prices dropping like flies, I can't swear for one manufacturer over another. Seems to go the way of disposable lighters! That said, I'd still go for Hitachi or Seagate any day. As for the 7200rpm drives, based on what's been expressed here so far, there isn't a significant increase in power consumption.

 

I have never had an issue with any Hitachi hard drive. I have been putting them in laptops for years both for myself and others and have never run across any problems.

I have had a few issues with Seagate drives... Not too many though...

 

I guess that's the problem...if you've been doing this stuff for enough years, you've been burned by one company or another.

I loved the Seagate 4000-series drives. I still have a system running a ST4096 and ST4051. But the Seagate 200 series was crap; I remember well the day my ST296N's heads stuck to the platter and ripped off. And in the late 1990s, I swore off of WD drives when they had the sagging plastic arm problem on their 1Gb range.

Eventually I forgive them. Seagate's quality started to come back up after they bought Control Data. The Wren drives were great (still have a couple of those running, actually).

I've gone through Quantum, Micropolis, there was even a time when Maxtor was the top breed drive for me (back in the 5.25", full-height days).

It was the failure of so many IBM DeskStar (another story on Slashdot here). drives that burned me on the IBM brand; perhaps their TravelStar products have been better. But it got to the point that I was waiting until ten IBM drived died to ship them off for warranty replacement so we could at least half-fill a 20 pack drive box. We only had 64 of the drives, and I think about 40 of them died before we gave up and replaced them all with Seagate drives, which have (crossing fingers) been okay so far.

 

Once again, thanks guys for the guidance, I have had success in assembling the HDD into the Caddy. I must admit I was a bit dazzled there for a while with the cable folding over into the thread connector tab slot. BUT.. eventually came thru. I COULD NOT have done it without those photos. Now, I am loading XP Pro onto the 60GB Hitachi Travelstar 5400RPM. I also decided to partition C:/20GB D:/ 40GB (for data, digital maps etc).

Do others generally partition their drive to keep all applications on one and data on the other.

So far so good, although I have noticed that the LCD screen appears darker to what my eye is normally use to seeing.

Is this normal on the CF-28, can it be tweaked to be brighter.

Next project, will be to purchase an additional 4 x HDD caddies as I have another 4 x CF-28 toughbooks to configure. These are earmarked for family and friends.

cheers
zest4life

 

I normally just have one partition. If I want to store something I use an external drive or USB key.

The gamma rate can be tweaked a little to brighten the screen. But there is a slight trade-off on contrast and/or color... But then those can be tweaked too.

 

Hi,

Just got my caddy replacement. Could you send me the PDF on the HDD swap? Unfortunately, TB's post no longer has the pictures.

Thanks,

Cristián
[email protected]

 

The best drives atm look to be those single-platter Samsung spinpoint drives which are 5400 rpm units. I don't know what drive is in this CF28 I'm using but it's an 80 GB one. Ah there we go - it's a Fujitsu MHV2080AH.

Have to send something that's actually Australian-owned though. Three-Three's Mighty-Mite is the genuine Australian made and owned version. Vegemite used to be too, originally.

Yeah I reckon that if I'd been into rugged PC's instead of Sun workstations when I was still living in Sydney I would have been runnning a rugged PC VAR business instead of my now-closed Sun VAR operation. Probably not enough toughbook or opefire hardware on the open market here to make a go of it but as an export-oriented business, could be a goer!

Craig.

 

Bianchi,
PDF emailed.
CAP