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    Toshiba Portege 2000 issues

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by Shmoppy, May 15, 2008.

  1. Shmoppy

    Shmoppy Newbie

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    Okay, I bought a Toshiba Portege 2000, and had to buy a hard drive for it separately. Then I realized the issues that would be inherent in installing an OS on this computer, which is lacking an optical drive. Also, there are only a couple of optical drives which are actually bootable with this computer. I lucked out, and found one of these drives on eBay for a paltry $21. (New they're still ~$190)

    Okay, now for the issue. The drive I bought lacked an interface cable, which connects to the laptop through a PCMCIA card. The connector on the cd-rom side is a Mini-Centronics 36-pin connector. I have found adapters that go from the 36-pin connector to Parallel port, and from Parallel port to PCMCIA, but I am dubious as to whether this will work.

    Sadly, the manufacturer no longer has any of these cables in the warehouse, and the only place I found an actual connector online for sale is a South American auction site that requires a South American address and social security number to register.

    So, what do you all think? Should I try the Dr. Frankenstein connection to the laptop? Or should I just give up on the CD-ROM and go with another solution to the OS installation issue?
     
    Shmoppy, May 15, 2008
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  2. Hster2

    Hster2 Notebook Consultant

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    yep, save time try the other methods of installing the OS (which is XP?) , e.g. transfer the i386 file method

    Let's know how you want to proceed.
     
    Hster2, May 18, 2008
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  3. Shmoppy

    Shmoppy Newbie

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    I'm still trying to find one of those cords, but yeah, the OS I want to install is XP.

    How would you go about this? I've seen methods using a pcmcia SD card reader, and other options such as attempting to install XP on the hard-drive using an enclosure on a seperate system, then transfer the hard-drive to the portege.
     
    Shmoppy, May 19, 2008
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