Restoring Windows on the Toughbook

This is the procedure to use when you are restoring windows on your Toughbook using the recovery cd set or dvd that Panasonic supplies with you model

This is important for upgrading to a new hard drive or just restoring to the original software load after problems with viruses or when you notice a slow down in performance

By using the original restore disks your Toughbook will be put back in a factory supplied condition

First:
Save any data that you need from you Toughbook
Here is n examble of a few items
Look in my documents
Save internet explorer favourites and cookies
Outlook contacts and messages

Second:
Hit F2 key when booting and enter the bios settings
Go to the Boot tab
Select your optical drive as the first device to boot to
Save and exit bios

Third:
Insert disk 1 in your optical drive and start up the computer
The disk will give you several options
You can erase the hard drive (best choice for reinstalling on you old drive)
When the erase is finished you need to reboot and the options will come up again on the reboot
Now you have options on reinstalling on the whole hard drive or you have the option on creating separate partitions for the o/s and for data
I always partition on the drives larger than 80 GB allowing at least 60 GB for the main o/s partition
After that is decided the software will be installed and will prompt you when it needs the second disk as so on
Its important to note that you should quickly put in the disks when asked as a long delay has caused the restore not to complete
When the restore is finished it will prompt you to remove the disk and to reboot the computer
At that time you should re-enter the bios and change the setting back to the hard drive as first boot device

Fourth:

You will be prompted at the first run to personalize the settings
Language setup and keyboard, your name etc.
When you get through all that and get into windows for the first time your hardware will be configured correct and will be working properly
Hardware items that will not get configured
*Wwan wireless software will have to be loaded
*Wi-fi software if you have changed the wi-card
*Sometimes Bluetooth software
*Any other non-Panasonic hardware items added from the stock configuration

The display configuration Panasonic usually has set-up is a high contrast setting that looks terrible ,so right click on the desktop and change the theme to a more common one

Fifth:

Your restore disks will show the service pack version # of windows as part of the part number on the disks
An example is my cf-29 mk-2 disks
(MK2-XP1AM-TSW)
After xp it has the number 1 so that contains sp-1 only
You will need to get the service packs from the Microsoft site to update to the latest service pack3
I download the complete file here and run this next
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en

Sixth:
Now that you have windows in the latest version you can run windows update with custom settings and choose all the high priority items and finish updating the windows installation
You might have to restart the computer several times

Next install your data back on the computer
Go to the Panasonic downloads site and see if there is updates for you model
These updates will be newer than the restore disks and will be usually found on the main site here
Note: The updates are shown in red and marked as latest update

http://pc-dl.panasonic.co.jp/cgi-bin/itn/toughbook/dl01.cgi

After you download and install the latest Panasonic updates and reboot you can go back to the Microsoft download site and check for and download newer updates for your hardware


Note: This thread was written quickly by me to a query from a forum member interested in understanding the restore procedure
It’s a work in progress , and I will be updating and adding things that I think of later
It took a while to type this all out

In the same time it took to make up I could have restored four Toughbooks lol


Alex

 

Very informative! Nice job....

 

Excellent post for the uninformed, Alex. Here's one up for 'ya.
BTW, completing an image post restoration will sure save some time if rolling out a couple units of the same hardware/software configuration.
Ron in SG

 

Tomcat
good writeup. One shortcut I'd suggest:

pressing escape at the bios screen (instead of F2) will give you a menu to select the boot device, without having to change the default

nine

 

Thanks nine,
I will add that later as its a good shortcut
I was concidering just to post that when I did the write-up ,but on some units you can disable that option, so it might not always be available,depending on bios settings

Alex

 

Alex.... Perfectomundo... Looks like it is destined for stickyhood one way or the other... Excellent ideas brought up by the others as well.

Rep all around...

 

Ron,

Legally this should only be done if you use the recovery disks to setup the drive as it has the multi-purpose COA on the recovery disk. (For lack of better words.) If you use the regular method of installing XP Pro (Or whatever OS) that requires a COA... You may need to SysPrep the drive and THEN clone it. Then you can plug in each drive in your main PC using an external connector PRIOR to boot-up and enter in the corect COA that matches the COA on the bottom of the laptop. This is what I used to do with my CF-28/800MHz&1GHz models... You are right... It saves a TON of time!

 

For what its worth, and I believe Alex is planning to add this, not all external drives will read the restore disks properly. I have a new Samsung USB DVD/CD RW drive which will not install restore disks on my CF-18s. My Sony external drive works like a charm. This had me beating my head against the wall until the brain trust figured it out. The Samsung is not a piece of crap, its fairly high end and burns DVDs and CDs like a champ, so don't assume there is anything wrong with the disks if you have a similar problem, try another drive.
CAP

 

The only thing I would throw on is once you do all of that, install your favorite programs, do one final round of updates, defrag, then burn your own HDD image with either Ghost or True Image onto an 8GB DVD or two.

That there has saves me more time than ever the next time I restore everything, which I like to do every 6 months or so.