Optical Drive Options for Toshiba M200 Tablet PC

Hardware and technical stuff
1

Howdy,

I’m getting one of these badboys for Xmas. It doesn’t come with any form of optical drive - so I’m trying to determine exactly what route to go. So here are my questions:

  1. I don’t know if its got a slot for an internal DVD drive, does anyone know this one? This would be ideal.
  2. If I go external USB 2.0 type thing, what models are good? I’d like something lightweight so it can travel with me. I’d also like something I can boot from; e.g. to do a new installation of windows.

Assuming the latter part of #2 isn’t possible, how the heck do I rebuild the badboy if/when it becomes necessary? Usually when I buy OEM systems I rebuild them straight away to get rid of the garbage…

Thanks
JD

2

I googled “toshiba m200 optical drive” and found:
http://www.comp-buyer.co.uk/buyer/pcpro-labs/63470/toshiba-portege-m200.html

Where it says the M200 DOES NOT ship with an optical drive of any sort as standard equipment. Also, it only has 256MB of RAM, which isn’t really enough for Windows XP. So you might want to budget for a RAM upgrade.

These are the part numbers with descriptions clipped from the technical specifications.

PA3352U-1CD2 Toshiba Slimline External USB 2.0 CD-RW/DVDROM
Combo Drive

PA3137U-3CD2 Toshiba Slim SelectBay CD-RW/DVD-ROM Drive
(Black)

PA3231U-1DV1 Toshiba Slim SelectBay DVD Multi Drive Kit (Black)

Here’s a discussion of various other vendors optical drives that will or will not boot the Toshiba. Apparently sometimes the even the Toshiba drive wont boot a Toshiba (oops).

http://tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8976

3

Hey Roger,

XP works fine with 256. :P But maybe that’s just the corporate shill in me. Either way, the one I got has 512 megs.

Thanks for the links though. My google skills honestly suck - hence the post.

JD

4

Jeff,

The M200 doesn’t have a drive bay, so you’ll definitely have to go the external USB option. (Or get the docking station and a SelectBay drive, which is what I have on my M200 at work) Not sure if you can boot from it, as I haven’t tried a USB drive.

The M200 rocks, BTW. I say that even though I almost never use the tablet functionality…