OS-less CF-28

This is probably more of general notebook question than a Toughbook one. I have two CF-28s one is a 800mhz touchscreen and the other is a 1GHZ non touchscreen. I use these machines primarily as navigation equipment as small courier company. I recently purchased the touchscreen model with a wiped hard drive and am trying to figure out how to get an OS on it with out a CD drive. It has the option for a cd boot in the BIOS but just a floppy drive and same with my 1GHZ book, so I cant swap in a cd drive that I dont have in either of em. There is no option for USB boot up so I cant use my USB DVD-CD Drive to install an OS. Any suggestions? I tried to to install an OS via bolting the CF28PB drive to my gateway and was successful with the install of 2000 but when I put it back into the book it would start to boot windows 2000 yet froze up. So I ASSume that it has something to do with the BIOS and compatibility and install of 2000. The machine works fine when I bolt the 1ghz's hard drive in with XP,minus all the niftyness that comes with a touchscreen model.
Thanks a million

 

you could get an adapter to plug your notebook drives into a desktop computer's harness, and then make an image of the loaded drive using a utility such as Ghost. you would then plug the empty drive in and copy the image onto that drive.

 

Hi and welcome to the forums. Here are a couple of links to other threads that may help you answer your question:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=162257

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=196608

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=183726

there may be other threads that may help, I just did a quick search, the search feature at the top right of this window may provide more answers, be sure to use the ADVANCED search and choose the PANASONIC forums to search otherwise you will be searching all of notebookreview!

Or, if you are patient, someone that knows more about this than me, will probably be by and provide more insight to the problem.

 

I guess my answer is the easy one... Buy a CD Rom. If you have a business it is a cheap investment as you will undoubtedly want to install more software on it eventually.

I know this doesn't help out your current situation but it will save you a ton of aggrivation and heartache... Believe me.

 

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

If you've got XP installed, then you're over halfway there. You need specific drivers for the touchscreen, and some of the other features. That's probably mentioned in the threads g-d-b listed. I've installed both W2K and XP on my 800mhz with no real issues ( USB enclosure, copied \i386 folder, etc.)

The drivers are available at ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/notebooks/

Check the data.txt file at the bottom - there are separate files for each operating system and each model (m-600mhz, P-800mhz, S-1ghz) for video, touchscreen (as a mouse driver), DMI viewer, and hot keys. Be sure you get the right ones. There are helpful directions in the various threads here, just search and review.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

and...

Toughbook is not going to blatantly advertise, but if he has a spare CD-rom to sell, you will get top notch service from him, and a good price. You just have to ask.

There are also others here that carry a few spare parts, and I have yet to be misled from any of the regulars here.

just sayin'...

 

I second the motion! Toughbook not only talks the talk; he walks the walk. I haven't dealt with any of the other folks personally; but I would have complete trust in the "regulars". I've never been on a forum with more helpful folks (except for the dell no fun policy fairy)