In another forum I've been working on a DOS boot disk that has USB support for DVD/CD drives that are not bootable on the Toshiba M200. I thought I'd add it here also. I hope this isn't redundant.

I tried this boot disk and it sees my restore DVD without any problems. I'm thinking that booting with the disk and creating a D: partition then copying the DVD files to the D: partition will allow the install from D: to C:. If rebooting several times is required I think this would allow the system to reboot and find the install drive. I [b] HAVE NOT [b/] tried this!

I'm trying to create a useable boot disk for M200 owners (actually anyone who can boot from a SD disk). I've added a few new pieces of software to the image. I also uploaded a new $TOSFD00.vfd of the .img file. ftp://ftp.pierskalla.com/pub/dosusb/ Take the DOSBOOT.IMG file and use the Toshiba Utilities - SD Memeory Boot utility, to create the new boot disk, or copy the $XXXX.vfd file to the SD card (you may still have to use the SD Utility to use the *.vfd file I've not tested this yet). Remember to download the files as binary not ascii. Also change your boot order in BIOS or use the pen and touch the floppy icon (be quick!) when booting during the Toshiba screen. I added; fdisk, format, attrib, sys, debug, deltree, chkdsk, himem, edit, to the image. I will add more soon. I'm thinking of mem. memtest86, etc, any other ideas will be accepted gratefully... The duse.exe program was written by Panasonic to use USB drivers for their CD's but seems to work with many chipsets and all types of USB drives; hard drives, some flash drives, etc.... It also should boot all USB 1.1 and 2.0 USB ports. http://newdos.yginfo.net/usbdos.htm .

YMMV but I think this is the first route I'd take without a bootable DVD/CD ROM.

Linuxmon

I came across this post after searching Google to find a way to make my SD card bootable. I feel more relieved now...this is the only working method for me so far after trying a few things before, i.e., the Toshiba SD Boot Utility I downloaded will only work with Toshiba's.

At least, now I can boot to Windows again even though my gentoo linux installation failed. Otherwise, it just got stuck on the Grub loading stage 1.5...Error 15. It didn't do anything afterwards.

Basically, I copied the $tosfd00.vfd to my SD card, then inserted it to the SD slot of my Portege m200 and rebooted. I ran fdisk /mbr and after rebooting again, I could see my Windows XP again. Now, I can move on and try to install gentoo linux again despite many failures already.

The whole thing has been a good learning experience, especially because the Toshiba Portege won't boot from the LiteOn USB cdrom I have. It forced me to do everything from hard drive, even though with some consequences....Well, I have to admit that it made me terrified just by thinking that the computer was totally dead. But I'm glad that your work has saved my computer from being unbootable at all...It is such great work. Even though I study computer science, but there is so much that I still don't know and still have to google, heheh...Moreover, I almost went ahead to purchase an external floppy drive or cdrom drive, which I was not even sure will work. Now, I don't need to anymore :)

Again, thanks very much for creating the m200 boot disk.

Regards,
leecarrot

I'm glad I could help. I too am a google addict. I've been doing this for years but I came to the realization 'why reinvent the wheel?'. We all grow smarter riding on the backs of others. We just need to remember that fact. Good luck on your gentoo install. I've installed Mepis and most everything (except the SD card) works OK. I usually boot the tablet to windows but all my other machines are Mepis or Ubuntu. Thanks for the support.
Linuxmon

Thanks for the sd-card image file to access a usb cdrom! It works on my Portege M200 with external usb cd/dvd drive (Philips SPD3100). I can use this to view the contents of the cd/dvd.

Question: I would like to install Ubuntu Linux on my M200 using the boot-able CD. Is it possible to boot a boot-able CD/DVD using this usb-enabled boot disk you have created?

I've looked at many Linux install pages for the M200 and almost all of them did it via a network install, this is not a good option for me.
I am currently running WinXP Pro SP2 Tablet on my Toshiba Portege M200.
I want to install Linux using my usb cd drive.

... the current drawback is I cannot boot from my usb cd/dvd drive, any suggestions? Is it possible to boot the sd-card with something that then is able to boot the usb CD/DVD?