CF-30 MK1 HD Upgrade

Hi, I have a CF-30 MK1 with an 80g HD and would like to upgrade to a larger HD such as 500g. Is this possible? I contacted Toughbook Depot and they have a 500g w/caddy and say it will work. Does anybody have any experience with upgrading to a 500g HD?

Thanks

 

Go ahead! pretty sure it gonna works. If you want to save a bit of a money just bought a 500gig hdd and replace the old one on your caddy. Be sure you purchase a 2.5 SATA hdd. either with 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm. Also I've seen a couple now that they made 2.5 SATA hdd with 10,000rpm. I'm not sure yet on this one. Maybe somebody can confirmed.


ohlip

 

Yes

Running a 500GB hard drive in my cf-30

Alex

 

Great, thanks guy's. Whats the best way to go about setting up the new HDD. I have my recovery disc and driver disc.
Should I try and clone my original Hdd or just start from scratch?

Porsche just started using the CF-30, everyone is very impressed with it and surprised I already have one. Problem is that its a MK3 and mines a MK1

 

I wouldn't put a 10,000 RPM drive in a laptop... escpecially a toughbook... Too much heat... The Western Digital Raptors are 2.5" drives... I have a spare 300GB raptor laying around..... HRRRRRMMMM....

 

You could clone it but Im rather supersticious and I always start from scratch when I install a new drive or start a new computer

 

I don't have an internal cd/dvd drive, but I do have an external dvd drive. How do I go about installing the operating sys? I use the recovery disc right? Do I have to make sure the pc boots from the dvd drive on start up?

Thanks

 

Yes you will be able to boot from an external drive
Hit F2 while booting and you select boot from usb cd rom in the boot menu

Alex

 

My knowledge of the Toughbook is limited, but I do know much about this topic!
Replacing the hard drive is easy!
But you have to watch out for the hard drive cable. Do not bend too hard on that cable. Example on the left ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=32566&d=1238735962)
Also I agree with connor922 about the fresh Window XP install with a full format.
If you like I can post pictures of the process in upgrading it.

 

Whatever you do, don't go with WD. At least that's my opinion. The 1st and only one I have used failed on me last week. A 320Gb Black Scorpion. I actually ended up buying a Patriot Torqxx SSD. I didn't have time to wait to order online so I had to go with what we had locally around here. It's just a Samsung SSD relabled.

Follow the instructions on how to swap a HDD into a caddy, perform a clean install, and you will be very happy.

 

In my opinion, the imaging software is worth learning! I have used Ghost and now Acronis True Image and had mostly good luck with both. My one failure was my own mistake and I learned from it.

A cloned HDD is as "clean" an install as any other. If the clone works, it has to be! Many folks seem to have had problems with various cloning software, but if you make sure that you have and maintain a good image it is a great tool. I now have an XP and a Win7 image DVD-RAMs for mine with all drivers, updates and the basic software load.

Reimageing either is a quick piece of cake and quickly allows me to recover from a meltdown. I have even done away with System Restore before to free up CPU cycles I have had so much success with this method. That seems to be worth about 15% as a seat of the pants type speed increase!

I keep my image DVDs in some of those old AOL metal tins that I used to always rescue from the Post Office! With a piece of cut paper between them I can carry several in there safely!

 

I have a 500GB in my 30 but beware of the cage itself,it is sharp.
Maybe it would only happen to me but I cut the crap out of my finger on one of the edges and then dripped blood on the new drive.

More sacrifice than I had intended.

Ed

 

Hi Traveler CF, if you could upload the upgrade process, that would be great.

 

You know I never thought of using a DVD ram with acronis, now I can justify buying a dvd burner to replace my CD/ROM and shut off system restore. Rep to you.

 

Riddle me this Batmen.... Can you get the 500GB from the factory Restore Disks on the CF-30? Or do you have to install manually?

What about the CF-29?

I have recovery disk drives cloned for just about every model.... Then I add what is needed per customer/sale. I haven't tried anything above the 160GB on the Recovery Disks as I only see 150GB with the ones I have done...

 

The cf-19 mk-1 , cf-30 mk-1 and mk-2 using recovery disks restore on 250,320 and 500GB hard drives


Alex

 

I think that you may be talking OEM restore disks here, which I have not got to use, yet. But, if not, Acronis will image any size HDD to another and when I did it I did not turn my 320 into an 80 like the drive I imaged from.

Of course high volume is one of the things that disk cloning was invented for!

KLonsdale, Thanks! I am always happy if I can return some of the help that I have received here!

 

Sorry, I lost my pictures but I think this pdf gives you a better idea of how to remove the hard drive. Go to page 24 ( http://www.modly.net/servicemanuals/CF-30C-Service-Manual.pdf ), btw you can thank mnementh for posting it in his faq. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the link.

What have you guys done to increase speed on your CF-30. I have 2g RAM, would instaling 4g RAM be possible on CF-30 Mk1? Any tricks to increase speed?

 

I have 4GB on my CF-30 MK1... But Windows can only handle a little over 2GB of RAM... Win7 can handle it though. But I think you can get the touchscreen working on the CF-30 MK1 with Win7... I may be wrong though...

 

Rick, this has nothing to do with XP/Win 7... It's a 32 bit limitation... and it will see 3.27GB of the 4. If you had XP 64 Bit editon or Win7/Vista 64 bit edition then you will see all 4GB. As far as the touchscreen working on win 7, I can't for the LIFE OF ME get it to calibrate worth BEANS on my win7 on my mk1 CF-30. I have a legit version too!

 

PLUS, the RAM used by the Graphics Controller for UMA, correct? What is the maximum that the CF-30 Mk1 will use for this?

 

I think it's 128 no matter what... I have 2GB in mine and it shows 128MB...

 

I started looking for my driver CD and cant find it. So I went to the Panasonic site and requested a drivers cd that the have avial for free. So waiting for the cd. In the meantime I started downloading all the drivers for my model from the site. I noticed the HDD download states that a driver needs to be installed first before a clean windows install? If I use my Recovery disc on a new blank drive, it should work right? This is considered a clean windows install?

 

You don't need drivers to load up the machine from scratch... the recovery CD will work fine...

 

Right, the restore disk has the correct sata divers
If you were to install an oem xp disk you would need to install the sata hard drive drivers during the install
You only need to look for updated drivers for your model from the panasonic downloads site and then microsoft update that are more current than when the restore disk was made


Alex

 

Just got my new HDD last night. I installed the recovery disc and everything worked just perfect.

Now I want to upgrade to 4G of RAM, what brand and model have you guys used. Kingston? I saw at Tough book depot a 4g for around 180 bucks, and another one at Frys electronics for around $100. Just wondering if I have to buy a specific model?

 

Kingston for shizzle! (yes, I am a white guy...)

 

Not sure if it's just me but a XP machine is usually zippy up to SP3 but once it's updated online, everything slows to a crawl; from boot up, log in till access to desktop to shutting down. A real hog...

Does everyone here do the full update or selectively, especially the few critical ones?

Ron in SG

 

I have no need for anything in SP3; I install SP2 and just don't use Internet Exploder. I DO use Windows Firewall, and I scan for viruses with a standalone scanner once a month, and I leave Automatic Updates turned OFF. I do NOT use any form of active virus protection; I know better than to punch the monkey. I've had the same build on most of my PCs for years without failure.

The bottom line:

If you avoid IE like the plague it is, and don't go to those stupid places on the www, you don't NEED all the "stupid crap" patches.

mnem
IE8 : More secure... than a wet paper bag. Slightly.

 

Any brand of ram on these
Don't spend more than you need to



Ron, remove all instances of Net framework V3/2 ,You can leave v1 alone thats where your slowdown is I believe


Alex

 

Ron, remove all instances of Net framework V3/2 ,You can leave v1 alone thats where your slowdown is I believe


Alex[/QUOTE]

Alex would that apply to any Toughbook or just the CF-30?

 

KLonsdale

Its only if you have a noticable slowdown after running microsoft update
I removed the v2 and v3 updates from a 600mhz desktop recently after the updates caused a huge slowdown

Ron is not using a cf-30 for sure ,he has several toughbooks
No issues with any of my cf-29's and newer models , I install all updates on them

Alex

 

Thanks Alex, since Windows 7 release, I am not sure of Micrsoft's motivation for "Critical" updates for win xp. I have quit using Internet Explorer, and am currently using Opera (Which is free by the way) and have been very happy with the speed at which it works, and it's customization features.

 

Alex, I suppose the removal is via "Add or Remove Programs"? If so, I see .NET Framework 1.1 and 2.0.

In layman's lingo, what's this .NET thing supposed to do?... before I zap it and ship 'em off to Gates.

Ron in SG

 

KLonsdale,
Sorry if I've side-tracked the thread but I was referring to my CF29N, plus others that started crawling after the *burp!!* heavy updates.

CF-30 I have not. On my wish list it is... and a 74 and a 52 and a 19 and a ...
Ron in SG

 

Ron, yes add and remove


Alex

 

No it was my mistake, I did not read as carefully as I should have.