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    How to load XP onto my CF29?

    Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by ert01, Feb 27, 2010.

  1. ert01

    ert01 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey guys! New to the site and new to toughbooks. :) I have a CF29ETKGZKM that came with a wiped HD. It does not have a CD drive... just a floppy. I'm fine with that since I'll just be using it for navigation in my Jeep when I'm offroading... so a CD drive isn't necessary for me at all... except:

    How the heck do I load an OS onto it? It only shows LAN, HD, CD, and floppy as my boot options. I tried loading XP onto a usb drive but it didn't work... I'm assuming this is since USB isn't a boot option.

    How are you guys getting an OS onto your toughbooks that don't have CD drives?

    Thanks!
    Mark
     
  2. denrosten

    denrosten Notebook Evangelist

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    Get a usb cd-dvd drive, and it will show up in bios, and you can load xp from that drive
     
  3. ert01

    ert01 Notebook Enthusiast

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    hm... Interesting... Would I still leave the boot priority as cd first then?
     
  4. Connor922

    Connor922 Notebook Evangelist

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    Yes the computer should see the usb drive as a CD drive :)
     
  5. ert01

    ert01 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I picked up an HP external drive today (external, AC powered) and it did not work at all.

    It tries to boot over LAN first and fails, then tried the floppy drive, then the HD.

    The priority was set as follows:

    CD
    LAN
    Floppy
    HD

    I have tried various other boot priorities, tried disabling LAN, enabling USB legacy support etc...

    Anyone have any other tips on how to get an OS onto my computer? How hard is it to set it up to boot over LAN?
     
  6. denrosten

    denrosten Notebook Evangelist

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    I can't help you with the lan, but it is weird that it did not work with the external usb cd, as it even worked on an old CF-M34 MK6 for me.
    I use a cheap samsung usb DVD writer
     
  7. tough-2-go

    tough-2-go Notebook Deity

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    Sorry no USB boot is available on the MK1/MK2 I think the MK3 does but for sure the MK4 and MK5 do. Sorry you were misled.
     
  8. Rob

    Rob Toughbook Aficionado

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    I have found that some external USB DVD/CD drives work with toughbooks and some do NOT. It's hit or miss. Personally I've used an 18x DVD R/RW LITE-ON drive. This is the one that I have that works great: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106297

    Good luck!
     
  9. Knightofoldcode

    Knightofoldcode Notebook Guru

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    Option 1) Boot from floppy, install from CD.
    Requires: External CD-Rom drive
    Requires: Windows XP CD
    Requires: Windows XP Boot Floppies to be made.
    See: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...db-5039-4955-bcb7-4fed408ea73f&displaylang=en


    Option 2) Boot from harddrive, install from harddrive.
    Requires: From another machine, some way to put Windows XP data onto harddrive.

    I'm not certain how to do option 2. I've seen it done, but I can't find my information, it's here somewhere! :eek:

    Edit: Actually, if your Windows XP CD has Service Pack 2 on it, you'll need a different link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...07-99F7-4A2D-983D-81C2137FF464&displaylang=en
    Just be prepared, it'll take (as best memory serves me) around 4-8 floppies!

    Knight.
     
  10. Alex

    Alex Super Moderator

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    Purchase a optical drive/caddy, you won't regret the money spent as they are not too expensive

    Alex
     
  11. Karnaugh49

    Karnaugh49 Notebook Geek

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    Have you verified the CD boots in a different computer?

    -K
     
  12. ert01

    ert01 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Well I got it going :)

    The USB CD drive didn't work for me. It worked on other comps but not for the toughbook to boot from.

    Here's what I ended up doing:

    1) Make a floppy bootdisk with the network drivers on it ( www.netbootdisk.com)
    2) Boot Toughbook into DOS
    3) Formatted HD through DOS (just to make sure it's wiped and good to go for a new install of Windows)
    4) While it was doing that, on another computer I put in my XP cd.
    5) Share the CD drive on the network (give Read permissions to all users)
    6) On the Toughbook I connected to the CD drive on my other comp.
    7) Copied the files from the CD drive on the other comp to my Toughbook HD (recommend putting xcopy on the bootdisk for copying the files)
    8) After that was all done, I just ran winnt.exe from my Toughbook HD and installed XP.

    Voila! XP install done.

    Didn't really take all that long, just remembering all the commands was a bit tough since I haven't used DOS for anything like that in a VERY long time.

    Hope that helps someone else in the future :)
     
  13. ColdMidWest

    ColdMidWest Notebook Enthusiast

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    Another thing that might help is to install the drive into another machine and copy over the setup files.
     
  14. Knightofoldcode

    Knightofoldcode Notebook Guru

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    Fairly elegant solution... it'll go in the wiki when it gets setup. :D

    Knight.
     
  15. mattpayne

    mattpayne Notebook Consultant

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    a tip for installing win7 onto a machine that fails to boot from the optical drive or usb optical drive isnt handy (My Mk3 wont boot from my USB HD-DVD drive or my Sony DVDRW DL drive - both drives fullsize and not bus powered and both been used many times to install OS's)

    remove hard drive from toughbook and install into another laptop which had DVD drive or boots from the USB optical drive. boot Win7 DVD, elect install options as you want and start the install. wait till win7 says that it will reboot the PC in 15 seconds - Turn OFF the pc, remove hard drive andd reinstall into toughbook - toughbook boots from the harddrive and continues the win7 install - all the files are present on the hard drive by that point!

    thats the method I used when my new Mk5 arrived and I didnt have a DVD caddy, but i did have lots of broken laptops!
     
  16. 9nine9

    9nine9 Notebook Geek

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    For XP, there are a set of boot floppies available (from MS) that have USB cd support. They should allow you to install XP on just about anything with a FDD and a USB port.

    nine