"New" CF-27 Owner

Greetings everyone! I recently came into possession of a CF-27 via a co-worker. (I'm a desktop tech, so is he, though he has little experience with "older" hardware). When I came into possession of the 27, it had Win2k installed but was getting HD-related BSODs during Win2k startup. My friend had purchased a 30GB hard drive from another friend with Win2k pre-loaded and slapped it in the 27, so naturally there were going to be issues. He then attempted in vain to install 98, but since the 27 did not have a CD-ROM other than the external, he gave up. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said "pitch it." I felt both angry and adventurous at the same time. Having experience loading OS's onto old machines, I decided to see if I could breathe new life into it.

So, I booted with a 98 floppy and fdisk'd the drive to create the primary DOS partition. I then removed the HD, placed it in an external enclosure and loaded the files from a Win98 CD using another PC. I put the drive back in and completed the 98 Setup. After days of searching, I found the necessary drivers on panasonic.ca (Ricoh cardbus controller was the big one giving me fits) and again removed the drive and put it in the enclosure to load the self-extracting archives (some were 2MB+ in size). After days of experimenting to find the right driver, as of last evening, I now have a working CF-27. The problem is, I don't know which model of CF-27 I have. This particular unit is apparently a "factory" refurb by a third party as it has their sticker on the bottom thst just says "CF-27EB." I have no documentation, no indicaiton of exactly which model it was/is. Is there any way I can ever find out exactly which sku of CF-27 I am looking at?

Also, does anyone recommend trying a good install of Win2k or even XP on this gem?

Regards,
n122vu

CF-27EB???????
Windows 98SE
192MB RAM
30GB HD
Xircom CardBus 10/100 Ethernet Card
External CD-ROM
Backpack CD-ROM
Zip250 Parallel Zip Drive

 

Have you looked in the BIOS? Every Toughbook I have ever seen has the complete model number located within the BIOS.

Win2K should work on there... Other with experience with the 27 can chime in though... Or you can search as I think there has been a little talk about the 27 here. The search function on this forum (As with most forums) is not that good. You may want to Google it and then follow any links to this site.

 

Welcome to the forum. First, one of our members, Modly, very kindly hosts a site where there is a wealth of information on several of the Toughbook models. Go to Modly.org/CF-27 and you should find manuals, drivers, bios upgrades and so forth for virtually every incarnation of the CF-27. Spend some time digging, it's all there. Second, I use several CF-27's daily in my work. I always do a new install of 2000 Pro and have never had a problem. CF-27's are a little fussy about operating system installs with out the media bay cd drives, but there have been some good posts recently on the subject. Look down the page aways. Some do run XP on the later models of CF-27.

 

The BIOS does not list the model on this particular unit. The BIOS is version 2.10L11H M20, if that is any indication...

 

It doesn't really matter what comes after the EB on a 27 but if you absolutely must know, it'll be 27EB6GC?M where the ? is the original OS assuming that sticker is correct. If you want to be sure, tell me what the sticker by the RAM slot says and I'll tell you the model... it'll be something like DL3UP11029EAA.

Win2K will work great but XP will only work decently if you have enough RAM. I wouldn't bother with it if you don't have a compelling reason to.

 

Zero,

Number beside the RAM slot is DL3U11072EAA. Thanks for the help. Would just like to know for curiosity's sake which model it is.

BTW, just for s & g, I loaded XP on the remaining hard drive space last night. I now have the CF-27 dual booting 98 and XP. And, I must say, I'm surprised at how well XP is running on this thing.

I used MDK Marshall's method, found here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=225336

as a rough guide. I used nLite to make a slightly slimmed-down install of XP, with most of the needed apps & components left in, and turned off all the XP eye candy upon boot. Works much better than I expected. I'm actually writing this post from the Toughbook. I also installed OpenOffice 2.0, which seems to load very well.

The friend I got the Toughbook from is leaving the company soon to accept a better position elsehwere, and I'm actually considering surprising him by giving it back to him loaded with 98 & XP as a thank you & good luck (He was instrumental in my joining the company 3 years ago). If he doesn't want it back, well, then, I have a new toy to fiddle with.

Thanks for the help and insight!

Regards,
n122vu

 

Ok, so you have the EB6GD?M. You have what's called a Telco unit which just means it's a mark 2 that has a modem, which is kind of rare to see. The vast majority of the mark 2s don't have a modem.

Yeah, I knew you could strip XP down to 150mb (post-install size) if you really wanted to. Now you have a plenty to play with.

 

Zero,

Thanks for the info.

n122vu

 

i too am a new 27 owner it has atdk df2814 modem and acfvdd271 cd drive i know nothing and would like to know if is possible to upgrade to xp and an idiot guide would be very appreciated ...thanks p.s model numberCF-27RJZ8VZZ

 

If you have a CD drive you've got it licked. XP runs fine on CF-27's. Most of the longwinded discussions you see here are from people who lack internal CD drives.

 

thanks capt. dogfish .heres some more info just to make sure,it has a 4 gb hard drive and 96mb of ram and a pentium mmx processor . is there anything ihave to do or upgrade or is this a sraight install ...thanks

 

sorry the number next to the ram slot is DL3UP11029EAA....

 

anok
I would certainly put a bigger hard drive in it. TB our honored moderator sells 20 and 30 GB drives on e(buyers are good, sellers are bad)Bay. Look for "klaatubarradanicktoh" for a good deal from an honest seller. You should be able to pick up some ram for cheap too.
Cap

 

thanks for your help ill let you know how i get on

 

cant find him ..keep looking?

 

memory lane....wow.

I deployed hundreds of those (CF-27RA48AAM) while working for a cruise line (S. Fla) from about 1999-2000 for pier embarkation. The units we got we Pentium 233MMX, touchscreen, Win98 with our own image deployed. We also had a few dozen units used by mobile salespeople at events/tradeshows with built-in CDPD cellular modems for live wireless bookings.

As I recall, the HD was in a little metal box inside, and the HD was inside a "gel" within the metal box - correct?

T

 

Yeah, If you are putting the quotation marks in, don't. Hit Community> in upper right corner of eBay page and enter his user name on left where it says find member. Or, PM Toughbook on this forum.

Shark, That's the one!