CF-30 The seller lied!

Wow! This just arrived at my door.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270258465829&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=017
The seller lied, he can't have ever used this thing! I have been buying, and sometimes selling, Toughbooks for about six years and this is the first time I've ever seen one in it's original packing. There was even a white foam sheet between the keyboard and the display and the whole thing was in a white foam protector. Turned the sucker on, 7.3 hours remaining on the battery! The display, non-touch, is so bright I had to turn it down a few clicks under strong overhead lighting! Now I need a little advice. On the same truck was my new 7200rpm 200gb Hitachi hard drive. Any tricks to changing it out? Next, the DVD/CD drive is a little weird looking in the face plate area. Has anyone hacked in a DVD burner? This is also my first Toughbook with a warranty (22 months) and I don't want to do a Modly on it! The Devil made me do this with $160 in eBay coupons which expired today.

 

Let's get this straight...he lied because it is in too good of a condition?

 

"Panasonic Toughbook CF-30 with Accessories in BRAND NEW Condition!!"

What are you talking about?

 

Read the post. I clearly state that it was in absolutely new condition. We screw around a little bit on the Toughbook forum, this is kind of an inside joke on our fearless moderator. He'll understand, it's A JOKE!
Cap
If you care, check the feedback I left for the guy.

 

The Cap is just excited.

Not often that guys that don't work for some Government agency get to actually fondle a Toughbook that has not been previously abused in some way. Kind of like a out-of-body experience.

Gotta love it!

 

Nah, I get the joke. Its just...well...if you're gonna be lied to, that's the way to do it.

 

That is pretty good! I had a funny job interview today actually, and I'm not sure if I screwed up by opening my mouth or not... The guy said that the company issues all the techs a Toughbook for the field. I told him I've got one in my car right now with GPS, and two more at home.

He said "We prefer the toughbooks because they are much harder to break, though we try to ensure that the techs use them as gently as possible".

That is about the time I should have shut up... but I mentioned that I threw my first one like a frisbee, stomped on it, etc, and finally cracked my screen.

 

And you did this because?

 

Awesome catch! You're gonna love it! To answer your questions, changing out the hard drive is pretty much the same as a 29 inside the caddy. Just pull the 5 screws on the outside, slip off the black connector covering, open the caddy, and pull out the guts in one piece. Find where the cable comes out from inside the plastic and lift up there - the clear plastic just folds over and is held by super-sticky tape. There's usually a strip of tape on the blank end of the drive holding it in to that plastic box and sometimes another strip on the face of the drive holding it to the inside as well but you can get past those pretty easy. The rest is cake and putting it back together is just in reverse.

You'll find the dvd/cd drive is a little strange in general. Part of it is that you pull the drive itself out instead of using a lever to get it started, like in the 28 & 29. Off-hand I don't know any burner hacks so can't help you there. Also, PM sent.

 

I was drunk and wanted to see how tough it really was. It took two hours to finally do any actual damage.

 

Two hours??!! Modly, you weren't drunk enough!

Hey Cap, that's a beau! Nice score. Pretty orgasmic heh, to fondle one in such pristine condition. No doubt that's gonna be your personal toy for a while. Enjoy!!

 

Interesting that there is no Windows Xp COA on the unit or did the guy photoshop it out?

 

The XP COA is still in the CD case with the restore disk. The guy (he owns a small IT company) even activated XP using my name!
Cap

 

Cap,

Good deal.

Is the dvd drive in the caddy a lot different from the drive in a 28 or 29?
I'm asking as I don't have a cf-30, but I have dvd writer drives in some of my 29S, and they work fine.

Alex

 

Alex,
Yes, it has a plunger kind of lock on the right side to insert and remove the drive. Think of the plungers in PCMCIA slots. It's like that, but built into the drive caddy(sled?). The door on the drive is oddly shaped around the plunger so a standard drive can't fit in there. Waiting on TB to pull something out of his hat.
Cap

 

Well I don’t have any idea’s Cap.

I would love to check-out a cf-30 .
BUT
I’m not buying another new toughbook
For a while

We were on a roll for a while, with caddy’s compatible between the 27,28 and 29.

Check in the device manager at look up what brand /model # the dvd/cdrw drive is.
That might give me a clue
Maybe a picture, with the drive drawer open?

Alex

 

Alex,
The issue is, on any DVD drive I have ever seen, the door is an integral part of the drive. If this picture will open, you will see that the notch for the plunger latch is part of the door. I suspect these are really CF-30 specific and I don't see any way to change out the drive.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270258465829&indexURL=7&photoDisplayType=2#ebayphotohosting
The drive sells for anywhere from $260 up and they are scarce so I don't want to screw it up. It really isn't important, I've got a really good external burner, but you know, you just want a little something more.
Cap

 

That part should be dremel-able since it's just a plastic flap. It won't be pretty but it'll work. I have a silver-bezel Sony DVD writer in my CF-29 because the grey Toughbook bezel doesn't fit properly.

 

You may be right. I'll get into it over the weekend. I won't need to wreck the OEM door as I won't be using it if one of the NEC ones will fit. You don't seem to really need the little handle in the middle as the plunger latch is a good enough handle to remove the drive.
Cap

 

You can buy OEM drives with the notch already on the faceplate they really are quite common.

 

Not bad a $3500 computer for 2 grand alright!

 

Rob,
$1840 with the eBay coupons!
Cap

 

Wow you really got a steal on that congratulations wish i had the extra money to buy a cf-30. I like the look of the cf-29 a little better but man the cf-30 is a nice machine they really made some good changes to it having more stuff built into it.


-James

 

i ended up getting my CF-30 for about $1800 if i remember correctly with the touchscreen and the WWAN ready pocket... it had like 70 hours on it when I got it, so it was virtually new (also had all the original packaging as well like u described (plastic in between the keyboard and screen), and the DVD-R/RW drive ($450 from Panasonic) was also included, which I assume he paid Panasonic to get!... Got thousands of hours now lol...

 

Zippy,
You should see the screen brightness! One thing I don't think I've seen on any of the other posts is the boot options. It might, and I emphasize might, have affected my decision had I known that you could set a CF-30 to boot off virtually any drive, USB thumb, USB CD, USB DVD, etc. in the bios. I might have bought one with a touch screen (just to play with) and WLAN but no DVD/CD for a little more if I had known that. That said, this is my first post on the new box. Spent most of the weekend loading it up on the new Hitachi 200gb 7200rpm drive and conning a bunch of Indians into letting me move my apps. Trust me when I say, except for weight, I don't think I will ever again feel the need for another Dell for work or business. This is a no compromise machine that gives up nothing in performance, capacity, or anything else I care about to be "tough". In short, as promised, I love it.
Cap

 

Hey man, so you're the guy who bought my Toughbook. I was looking around and saw the ebay listing, and I said to myself, wow, $1995 for a near new CF-30? Sounded to good to be true so I hesitated. When I decided to take the plunge, it was gone almost as fast as it appeared. He who hesitates.......Good luck with it.

 

Cleaner,
"He who hesitates is lost". Sorry about that, I had to jump 'cause the fleaBay coupons were going to expire! Keep your eyes open, there will be another, probably cheaper. One thing I can guarantee, they are every bit as nice as the other guys say.
Cap

 

I was sadly mistaken on what I payed lol... I pulled up the invoice from my old company that I wrote myself and it was $2775 + tax = $2962... almost 3 grand I payed for mine + the $450 sprint internal card + the $400 DVD burner + the $100 keyboard makes my machine worth $3950... so we'll just say that I carry around a $4000 laptop