Hello,

I'm considering purchasing a toshiba m200 tablet but I noticed the external CD drives are $200USD!!@#

That seems a bit stiff. Are there anythign special about these drives?

Could I simply buy a 3rd party CD/DVD-R drive with the same USB connection and get the same results?

Thanks,

Courtney

Only a few drives are bootable on the M200. Running the recovery CD/DVD requires this ability. There is a FAQ in the forum listing some known bootable drives, but these are now older models and may not be available any longer. To tell the truth even the Toshiba drive is questionable from the user reports I've read. You might want to buy a DVD/CD from a shop that will let you get a full refund if it doesn't boot. there are ways to boot from the network/CF card/SD card but these require someone who is comfortable with following technical directions. I can help you locate those resources if you need it.

You'll love the M200! I have set mine as my only PC (I used to have 5 machines going). It works great and is so versatile. I'm adding more RAM and a faster HD this Chrstmas (should be here today ;) ).

Permaturely, Welcome to the club.

Linuxmon

A link to those directions would be great. I’m rather torn about purchasing one. I would like to use one for work and for home use. I’m a Microsoft developer so I feel I could get some extra mileage out of it as well.

The major drawback is the lack of overall power. I would love to toss all of these machines replace it with a tablet. I haven’t seen a tablet with more than 32MB on the gfx card. Have you? I’m thinking of a Toshiba m200 with at least 1GB of RAM, and a 60 or 80GB drive.

Thanks for the reply!

Courtney

I'm seriously busy at work right now. I'll add the info hopefully tomorrow 12/24/04. Sry.

Linuxmon

I had the hardest time trying to get my Lacie d2 dual layer DVD+-RW burner to boot the Toshiba Recovery DVD until I stumbled upon a little tip in one of these tablet pc forums. If you hold down F12 while you boot the computer up you can select the CD Drive with the arrow keys and have the computer boot from it first.

The only problem was that the recovery process required multiple rebootings of the computer so you had to continue to hold down f12 and select the cd drive after each time until it tells you you can remove the recovery dvd.

Just thought it would help incase you have trouble booting the third-party dvd drive.

Good choice btw, I love the M200.

__________________
Paid too much for:
Toshiba Portege M200
1.7 Ghz Pentium M (Not Dothan)
512 MB 266Mhz DDR (2x256MB)
40 GB 5,400 RPM HD
Intel Wireless B/G
No Bluetooth