New guy with a CF-29N arriving. trilled:)

hi there all, i`ve read alot on this forum before i decided i wanted to buy a Toughbook, and thank god not a Dull..

ordered from fleabay a mk5 CF-29NTQGZBM with 4790 accum. hrs on it. 80GB, 536mb, 1.6Ghz, paid 250$

no ac charger and no cd. just floppy. it looked nice and supposedly working touchscreen, and not so much hours made me go for this one.

plans for upgrade is cd/dvd, backlit keyboard, bluetooth/gps first. but i am afraid to read to much in here, i am already hooked and the to-do list just getting more expensive..

but some questions though.

how old are the mk5`s, ca year? i do not have the serial # yet as the toughbook is in transit.

it comes with a wiped hdd and the XP-Pro sticker on bottom, but no disks follows. and i do not have any xp pro disks laying around, just home edition.

do i have to buy xp pro for this machine, or can i get the disks from panasonic/microsoft since the license is valid on the toughbook? (yes, i have read the faq regarding this) I live in Norway btw.

also, if i understand correctly, it is alot of drivers to be installed, so i maybe should be getting the recovery disks to avoid much hazzle? seen some on fleabay, but i suspect they are just the same drivers downloaded from panasonic.


i bought this toughbook because i am tired of killing laptops in my garage, lot of dust, metal, oil and drinks flyes around there. also it will be a great companion when i am offroading.. really looking forward to my first toughbook..

have a nice weekend Toughbook Gurus..

R.B

 

There is a Toughbook resource thread stickied with all you driver needs.

As for XP, you already have the license itself. You might as well download a clean disc of bit torrent and use your license. I dunno if its legal or not in Norway, but here in Sweden it is. Although I'm probably going to get a warning for this from our dear American colleagues, because I'm pretty sure this is illegal in the US. Nonetheless, when I lost my Windows 7 dvd, Microsoft Sweden's customer support told me that as long as your license is valid, they don't care where the disc or disc image came from.

Just remember it to be un-cracked, or else you wont be able to use your license and you wont be any better than the common pirate.
Cheers

 

2006 or so. The first number in the serial is the year, 6=2006. The next letter is the month, A=January, etc.

The recovery disc is the easiest way to go. The discs currently on eBay are not recovery discs. They only contain the drivers and such that can be downloaded free from Panasonic.

An example of the recovery disc is here:
Panasonic Toughbook CF-29 Series Recovery CDs | eBay
However this is for a Mk2. It will not work on your Mk5.

 

Well, one is, but the Seller wants three times what Heartland Services (genuine Panasonic Service and Parts) gets for them.

 

XP pro oem , using the key on the bottom , then a long process of driver loading
Recovery disks , for a cf-29 mk-5
If you get disks for a different mk# the hardware is different ,so you will be just wasting money on ususable disks

Hearland does not have them most likely, they seem to run out after a model is a few years old
Thats not confirmed, but what I usualy see posted here they don't have them and ask the customer to send the drive in for imaging for a price using their huge selection,no doubt of recovery disks

 

Here is another source of CF-29N Recovery CDs:

Panasonic Toughbook Recovery CD's

About $35. for 3-disc set.

 

Great - every Toughbook recovery disk but the CF-28s. Do you know where they can be ordered from?
Thanks.

 

Thats outrageous for copies

 

As I recall, this organization has offered 50% off their supposed list price (but obviously not this month).

So now you have to ask yourself a 3-part question: is the price this company is offering for convenience worth the time & effort to: a) obtain a valid copy / current Service Pack of WinXp; 2) compiling all of the correct drivers for your specific model Toughbook; and 3) installing all of it in hopes that it all works as Panasonic originally planned it to work?

I have travelled both routes in setting up the CF-27s, CF-29s, and the lone CF-28 here. Sure, it's a PITA to do it the long way around: but had I have known about the availability of these disks before hand would have made my installation so much easier.

Yes, it's an outrageous cost for copies...but IMHO worth the time saved.

 

Agree on worth the time saved
Still
Thats outrageous for copies

 

hi guys, thank you for all answers. i will definitive try to get a hold of the disks so i dont have to get a headache from the driver installs.

but my CF-29 came only with a floppy. how is it to install the recovery discs via a usb drive/sd card?

 

Usb boot? Use PLOP boot if Bios cant boot from USB. Or simply get a optical drive for it.

 

i will get a cd drive. but i cant wait for that also to arrive. must get cracking when it gets here

bios boot from usb? im thinking of installing the recovery cd`s/win xpp thru a usb drive or similar.

 

Well do as you like. It was merely a suggestion. I used that on my cf-28 without cd/dvd and it worked fine.

 

not sure if you know this but the recovery disks are an image of the harddrive when it left the factory. Its not like a de-ll or a-cer with just XP Pro on it. This is a 3 disk set

 

i think i might not understand what you said about biosboot/plop?

could someone elaborate what this means? is it possible to install the recovery discs without having a cd player?

 

Yes, Plop boot mananger loads usb drivers after bios. So even if the computer cant boot from usb originally, plop bm makes it possible. You need to create a bootable usb drive with the image and then you're good.

 

ok, when i got the recovey discs i will give it a whirl.. google is my friend. thanks.

 

^ I sense the Google is strong with you, my young Padawan.

 

How's about the alternative to google--------Azrial's Resource Thread: W00h00 we have a new acronym. ART
TEST site:forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic - Google Search

I replaced TEST with "plop linux" and found this: (amongst others)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/529779-download-usb-cf-29-mark2e-yes.html#post6846306
ART FYI

Jeff