Cf-M34 MK7 USB CD Issues

Hi.
I am quite used to working on m34's (mostly mk3 pIII 700) and recently got a hold of a couple of mk7's(centrino 1ghz)
What puzzles me is that I have tried several usb cd drives that booted fine with the mk3 but couldn't make any of them to boot with the mk7..a couple of times they started to boot but didn't go through all the way in a similar fashion to the cf27 and cf28 when you replace the original cd with another drive that is not set as master.
I do have a hard drive with XP installed and once you are inside windows the external cd works fine.
Before anyone asks the bios is set to boot from the usb cd dvd first and the external drives and the discs were tested to boot on my mk3.Also no bios updates seem to exist for the mk7.
Any thoughts?
Thanks for your help.

 

Its unusual that the drive works on the mk3 cfm34 and not on the mk7

Is there more than one usb port to try
I have found that booting on my cf-18 works with one of the two available

I have three different usb drives and the newest generic model boots good but the two older models will not work for booting on my cf18


Alex

 

Thanks for the quick reply
The mk3 and mk7 use completely different chipsets
The m34 have only one USB port .Maybe the external units that I have are not compatible for boot as apparently is your case.
One question..Do the usb drives that you have work fine once windows boots as it is my case?

 

Yes they do work fine once windows is loaded



Alex

 

Have you checked to make sure you have the mot updated BIOS? If so, or if there is none available... Reset to factory... Reboot.. then set up and try again....

Just my .02

 

Yes
I have checked and it seems like there is no bios update for the mk7.

I also tried the reset to factory approach several times without results.

My real concern is if there is something wrong with the machines or they are just picky with the usb cds that they boot from as it seems to be the case with Alex cf 18.

 

Have you tried it with an external power source on the CD-drive? maybe the drive doesn't get enough juice from the MK7.

 

Good point!

 

Yeap
That was what I tried first.

 

Can you verify that the USB connector even works?

 

Absolutely.After XP loads all the drives that I have tried worked with no issues.
The problem is only at boot.It takes a long time to even start booting from the external drive ,the few times that it goes that far but nothing afterwards just like what happens when you put a new dvd burner on a cf 27 cd caddy without performing the mod for Master...A looong post with no boot from the drive but once you get into windows the drive works.
BTW I already tried changing the master/slave/CS settings on the external drive that allowed me to do that..no luck!

 

One more thing to check that was an issue here in the past
On the cf-18 the usb connectors were a tiny bit short for some usb storage devices etc
Ihis might be an issue with your cf-m34
Try a short usb ext cable
Try moving the connector a bit
It was an earlier problem first reported by James last year
See if the cd drive device is mentioned in the bios by name ( My cf-19 even lists the usb optical drive model when its hooked up in the bios


Alex

 

Alex keeps corks in his ears so nothing he learns leaks out!

I can't believe you pulled that one out... Good job!

 

I have tried with two different USB cables as well as moving them in all directions without any change.
The device manager lists the optical drive model the bios don't.
I will try with a different cable later to check if I see any change

 

Go into the bios and check for two items

Set Legacy usb support in advanced menu to enable

Select boot menu, then select usb cd/dvd drive and press F6 until usb cd/dvd drive is on the top

If you don't see usb drive , then you do have a problem with that drive

One of the members here had a problem with a new Samsung USB DVD/CD RW drive

My lack of boot issues were with very old panasonic compact cd drives and the unit that has been fully compatable with all my cf18's and cf-19 is on the link here
http://store.mo-co-so.com/externalusbslotloadingdvdcombodrive-p-32.html

The recomended panasonic drives are CF-VDRRT1 or CF-VDRRT2W and are rare


Alex

 

I have had my share of troubles in the past trying to boot from claimed 'bootable' USB CD/DVD drives. Following a tip from an IT professional I got a Bytecc (ME-525U2FW) USB/Firewire external enclosure. The neat thing about this unit is that it has a built-in fan-cooled AC power supply - no wall wart needed and it can accommodate a variety of 3.5"/5.25" IDE devices (HDDs and CD/DVD drives). I have used several 5.25" desktop CD/DVD drives in it and have not had any trouble booting any of my toughbooks (M34 & CF-18) or any laptop I have tried.

 

As T2go mentioned, I f your external cd rom drive has provision for external power, use it. Your cd rom drive has lack of power to do the job. Did you try that? Based on my experience some notebook need not require external power but some are necessary to drive the cd rom.


ohlip

 

I did that when I first started trying to boot.
My external usb enclosure looks similar to the one on the link except that the drive is not a slot loading one

 

I tried with about 6 external drives and two of them were connected to external power supplies without being able to boot from any of them.However after XP boots I was able to read and copy the contents of the discs.

 

I have done that but I was hoping to know if someone here has experience with the mk7.I have tested all those usb units to boot on mk3 and mk4's.

 

I worked on M-34 MK7 several times and used the cheap slim cd rom adapter from china and it works fine. When it din't work on the dvd cd rom combo, i just change the drive a basic cd rom drive that I have laying around. And if doesn't work i connected an external power USB type cable to another computer coz I know that m34 has only 1 usb. Other thing is if you have an adapter from serial to usb, You can use that as another external power for the cd rom.


ohlip

 

When I reread your post last night, I noticed that you mentioned having acquired a 'couple' of mk7s, are you experiencing the same booting problems with both of them ? Do you have a USB floppy drive (Teac) ? and have you tried booting to it ?
I have heard that for some obscure security reasons, at the request of certain law enforcement / governmental agencies, some toughbooks had their bios factory modified to prevent booting from an external device.
FYI my normally functioning mk7 shows the following :
Bios V.7.00L13
Embedded Controller V.7.00L12

 

I could have sworn I saw him post that he had fixed it by installing the heater?? Anybody else see that? What happened to his post?

 

t2g -

Nope... you're not crazy (or at least, this isn't the proof thereof); I saw his post saying that too...

mnem
*BlinkBlink*

 

Yes,I do have several (3) of those with exactly the same issue.

I actually tried using other devices and I were even able to boot the unit from a USB thumb drive if I previously disconnected the HDD but that didn't make a difference when trying to boot from from the external CD.

You may actually be right about the Bios modification because after I ran a bios/cmos utility (uniflash) and cleared all the cmos stored info the boot efforts of the machine went further.

I do have the same Bios and embedded controller versions as you do.Maybe you can create a backup of your Bios with uniflash and I can try loading it on one of my machines to check if it works.

 

You are right.

I did post that I fixed it by plugging in the hdd heater after clearing the cmos with uniflash in all the machines but for some really obscure reason it only worked once.

I did try to repeat the procedure and they didn't boot again so I came back to the forum and deleted the post because it made no sense anymore.

Sorry for the confusion that I may have created by doing that.

BTW The part that for me is really confusing is that after windows loads the external drives work flawlessly.

 

What exactly are you trying to boot up to an XP disc or recovery disc?. I have to wonder if the MK7 perhaps doesn't support the ElTorito standard that XP requires. Do you have a docking station? If so try to connct your drive to the dock's USB ports.

 

I already tried with the dock and got no results (as expected)
I actually tried with almost every bootable cd that I could put my hands on..from a XP disc to a ghost and a Hirens boot disc but as I already said before I was even able to boot from a pen drive under certain conditions...and once windows loads from the hdd the usb drives work.
I am just running out of ideas and would highly appreciate if someone could provide a backup of the bios from an mk7 that boots normally from an external cd so I can try to eliminate the possibility mentioned previously by Waterproof.

 

I know the BIOS issue has already been discussed, but here's another thought. I have a .zip file that has the batch file as a part of it to install USB boot support on the N model CF-M34. You install by creating a bootable floppy. I do not know the compatibility with the Mk7, but it is another possible solution. Thoughts guys?

 

If your mk7 bios and embedded controller versions are the same as mine ie, V.7.00 L13 and V.7.00 L12, I do not think that is where your problem is. Your mention of being able to boot from a USB thumb drive with the HDD disconnected, reminded me of a previous occasion (with a M34N) when the only way I could get it to boot from a USB CD/DVD drive was to 'trick' it into believing that I did not have a HDD connected. I was able to do this by installing an unpartitioned , unformatted HDD which I created with dos FDISK. Strangely enough, after the initial episode, I never experienced the problem again on that particular machine. You could try this with your mk7.
Have you called Panasonic support ? I have found that if you get to the right person and you can convince them that you know a bit about what you are doing, they can be very helpful. I would certainly get them to provide you with the bios flash bin files and the bat file needed to execute the flash. I would strongly discourage you from messing with uniflash.

 

Thanks for the insight but as far as I can remember the mk3 was the last cfm34 that shipped with a bios that didn't natively support booting from a USB optical drive and it was solved with a bios update.The mk7 however uses a completely different chipset and will undoubtedly be bricked if a bios from a previous generation is installed.

 

Yes my bios version and ec are the same asyours but the fact that the behavior changes a bit for the next boot after clearing the cmos make me think about something is messed up or modified in the BIOS.
I have tried to get the file from Panasonic with no luck but I may try again.
Uniflash is a really powerful tool and as such it will allow you to mess up things really bad if you are not careful enough.I has allowed me to bring back from death quite a few desktop motherboards that were messed up by a badly flashed BIOS and it allows you to do full backups of Bios including even the bootblock.
If you don't mind I would highly appreciate a backup file of you Bios and bootblock.It doesn't involve any risk to your machine.Anyway thanks for the insights.

 

The reason I suggested to you to contact Panasonic directly for the bios files is my understanding that even though it might not be expressly prohibited, the sharing of bios code etc. between members on this forum is frowned on.

 

Well I didn't know about that.
The issue with that bios is that was the original and as far as I know the only bios version for the mk7 and panasonic usually only makes the upgrades available and there is none for the mk7.

 

Publicly available BIOS downloads can be freely shared. We do not discuss how to defeat passwords or copying of copywritten software. If you can download it from Panasonic for free... You can discuss and swap it here.

But you are better off downloading it from Panasonic in the first place.

 

You wouldn't even get that far... If your model is not supported then it wouldn't even load.

I just checked Panasonic... No BIOS updates for the CF-M34C version. (MK7)

There are a host of others though... Several to correct booting off of CD Rom

 

Bios files are OK here ,unless they are modified from the original

An example would be a bios file that would make your

Toughbook think its a Dell



Alex

 

That would be one DULL Laptop!

 

I dunno - if I could make my CF-28 THINK it was my XPS M1330 I'd be TICKLED PINK... that is of course, if it could CONVINCE ME of that and it came with the associated speed and bad@ss slot-loading DVDRW drive with remote control and HDMI output...

*CACKLES*

That would be one deranged little mule...

mnem<~~~de-ranged... about 50m~~~<<<

 

I tried again today to get the bios files from Panasonic with no luck.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to get it.
Thanks

 

As post #36 states... There are no BIOS updates available for the MK7 (CF-M34)...

 

Hi Toughbook, could you please clarify, I would like to help Libretough, but regarding the sensitive issue of sharing bios code, I am still unclear after reading posts #35,37 and 41.