Toughbook CF-29 Hard Drive Replacement

Alright so I got a CF-29 a few weeks ago and have already filled the hard drive. It's a Mk.3 with a 40 GB drive. I turned to here to see if anyone knew what drives work best. I looked through some of the other CF-29 threads, but there all kinda old. With high cap hard drive prices going down things like 1 TB drives aren't more than $70. I was wondering if anyone knew if a 1 TB drive would even work with Windows XP and what type works in a Mk.3. (SATA or PATA, solid state or standard, other acronyms which I overlooked) Also if anyone knows what brand is the best for price and quality it would be most appreciated.:thumbsup:

 

PATA or IDE. Forget the pata to sata adapters...
SSD's are great but need to be pata

 

The best thing you can do for yourself is read this sticky http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/241106-cf-29-f-q-read-me-before-posting.html . Lots of info on the 29

 

UMMM.... just curious why every says you cant convert from ide to sata..... just did... cost me 3$adapter 27$ 500gb drive sata... and 45 mins.... it was simple...?????:thumbsup:

 

The issue is reliability. I have tested many of those adapters. For a few lucky people they continue to work in Toughbooks. For the vast majority, they either won't boot or work in the first place and then they begin to work sporadically. Random disk access errors, failure to boot..etc...

Good luck and back up your data often..

 

Well we never said you can't because we have 3-4 threads at least about it using the CoolDrive brand converter and I was one of the one's that did this mod to the CF-29MK5 and after I did it I never had so much problems with my 29... . Maybe it would be ok if it was going to be used on a desk all the time but I took my 29 with me every where in the truck. I bought my Toughbook because it was Tough but after the mod it was Toughless .

 

Well, I am new here and thought I would add something. I bought a SATA adaptor from TechTough in Canada off Ebay. It works great on my SSD with no problems for months. I use it in a vehicle mount in my Toyota Tacoma off road. Subjected to serious vibration and still works well. Is that one that has been tested? The link is here:

Use 2 5" SSD or SATA Hard Drive in Panasonic Toughbook CF 29 Caddy IDE Adapter | eBay

For reference, I later bought their GPS kit. It was difficult to install and I couldn't get it to work. After messing up the connector and cable pass-through for the touchpad, they sent me a replacment. Still didn't work. Then they offered to install at a discounted rate, but I didn't want to do that. They finally gave me a full refund. Customer service was outstanding.

 

That's cause "they" is Andre , and he is outstanding and a real person. (gentleman) I'm involved in my forth or fifth maybe tenth techtuff deal and I know Andre is the real deal. He is not on the forum much because he is busy.....improving the "Toughbook Experience".
What is difficult? Maybe we can help.

Thanks....up with techtuff...

Jeff

 

I love the TechTuff GPS kits. I have found them to be on par with my own custom stuff, well built and always work great for me. I have never tried his CF-29 kits as those are just too easy for me to build and I have a lot of excess parts left over for them. I use his CF-30 GPS kits on occasion and they are stellar.

Going back to the OP's original question... We all have our favorite drives but, for me, most of the IDE drives are pretty much the same. As for SATA drives... I have started going SSD for most builds.