Panasonic ToughBook CF-25 O/S Install Problem

[edwardpyle]

Hi all

I'm the recipient of a Panasonic Toughbook CF-25 (for free)

The previous owner wiped out the hard-disk and 0/S (Win 95 I think - this is a low pentium notebook). It can use either a 3.5" floppy drive, or a CD-Rom drive, not both at the same time.

I want to install an Operating System, and I'm having trouble
I'm trying for Win 98.

First I tried to change the boot-sequence to boot from the CD-ROM and the Computer didn't seem to see the Win 98 disk I put in....

My next move is going to be to see if I can use the floppy drive to boot to a dos prompt with CD-Rom support, and then swap the floppy drive for the CD-Rom and try to load Win 98 from the CD... Does anyone know if this will work or have any other suggestions?

I suspect some of the drivers are gone too...

 

[ski]

See if this helps:

http://kb.indiana.edu/data/ajgd.html

 

[rockerfellerz]

I don't think that you can load cd drivers for a device that isn't present then put it in and have it work...
If the bay is not hot swapable you might damage the computer.
If it won't boot from the cd You could get a drive adapter that will allow you to connect the hard drive to a desktop machine. From there you can fdisk / format and copy the win98 directory to the laptop drive. Then replace it in the laptop and boot up with the floppy. Navigate to the folder wit the the setup files, run setup to start the install.
This link has a picture of the adapter...

http://www.myxtech.com/p/1857.html

Good luck.

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[edwardpyle]

I have it working now and I used a method similar to the one in the link you sent..

I think my big problem in the beginning was the bios wasn't picking up the hard drive, it may have not been installed correctlly.

The drive is not hot swappable, so it is possible to install one without the device present. I ended up having to swap drives between reboots and using a generic driver that my Win 98 disk eventually replaced.

Thanks Guys... I'm tracking down drivers now.