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Bios for CTX EzBook 700E

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 9:06 am
by elleke
i know that about 7 years ago bios for this oldie was already an issue on wimbios-forum. there are still a few posts to find.
nevertheless - I cannot find the bios anywhere. what i need is the possible newest version for CTX EzBook 700E. no idea what its bios id string is :(
is somebody still having it? i would appreciate any help.

thanks in advance!

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 10:23 am
by edwin
at the bottom of this page:
http://www.ctxtec.com/support/download/drivers.htm
There's a complete set of drivers in a zip-file but alas no bios. However, I think an email to their tech support might work wonders here. If they still do have bioses, etc for older laptops, let me know. I'll be glad to host them.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 10:50 am
by elleke
thanks for your reply!
i've found this zip file a few days ago, but - as you mentioned - no bios inside :(
i have also checked the - still working! - ftp . ctxeurope . com/drivers/notebook/700e/bios . you can find the original flash software there, but no bios... there is another ftp link in the readme file ( ftp . veridata . com . tw/953e ), but this does not work anymore.
in the old posts on this forum sombody called "Rainbow" claimed to have the bios i'm looking for, but he was only sending it vie email to people who were interested. and it was 7 years ago.
so - my hunt must go on

answer from ctx

Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 8:39 pm
by elleke
i've contacted ctx, and they've even sent me an answer back! they say: "This
product have been discontinue for more then 10 years.". and they have no bios for me :(
so - anyone, dear forum users, having it by accident? ;)
or - to explain my problem in details: i've replaced the original 2gb hdd with a fujitsu 40gb one. when booting from knoppix cd i can access the hdd with no problem, but installing any system and booting from it seems to be impossible. (i was intending to have winxp - it was working with the old hdd!). i've also tried the ontrack software (for fujistu hard disks, 3 diverse versions...) - but with no luck. creating a smaller partition at the beginning also brings nothing...
help, please!!!
or i'll throw the thing out of my window - no xp meant here ;)

Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 8:53 pm
by cp
can you autodetect the HDD? if so make a partition in the BIOS known space even if it is not the full size of the HDD and install Windows in it. after that update to SP3 (or at least SP2). now you can call the Windows in-build partition manager and partition the rest of the hdd.

well...

Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 9:36 pm
by elleke
first: thanks for the reply!
second: it seems not to be that easy...
in bios there is NOTHING about hdd at all.
when installing win xp on - let's say - 1,8gb partition, the first step of installation goes well, but after restarting (must be done during the install) a message comes instantly - something like "cannot find blablabla.dll. press alt+ctrl+del". the message differes depending on what language version i'm trying to install (pl/de/en tired, sp1 and sp2 as well), so it seems that the bios can see the hdd and read the mbr, but windows (?) is not able to access the partition.
i've checked what have been done by booting knoppix cd - all windows files seem to be successfully written on hard disk.
any ideas what to do? should the partition be created in a special way (with linux fdisk? as primary or extended? what partition type? ...?) should i go back to the idea of throwing the old lap through the window? ;)
greets,
elleke

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 8:32 am
by cp
you can try to wipe the MBR with linux fdisk and start with a clean hdd. use the windows installer to partition the disk. which max. partition size is displayed when you try to install windows?

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 8:43 am
by elleke
when creating partitions with winxp installer the max size is 40gb, that means the whole disk. seemingly at this stage the installer does not rely on bios. but after a reboot there is ONLY bios to handle the hdd.

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 8:30 pm
by cp
AFAIK the installer (if using a standard XP installation without any SPs) does rely on the information provided by the BIOS.
maybe the problem is somewhere else. didn't wiping the MBR help?

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 9:57 pm
by elleke
winxp installer without sp's rely on bios? interesting!
i'll give it a try for sure!
but - as far as i know - fdisk does not touch the mbr...
the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/HD count=1 bs=446" should do, right?
changing bs to a bigger value should wipe out the partition table as well - why not? there is nothing to loose.
thanks again!

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 9:12 am
by cp
yes, dd will do the trick :)

the ultimative sollution

Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 11:02 pm
by elleke
i've just tried to install linux on this old machine (ubuntu 9.04)
there is ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM booting it, using it, whatsoever.
it runs like hell: samba server+mpd+printer sharing+even small python program (for http scanning support). x11 is disabled, but lxde seems to be working all right.
windows is crap...
greets,
gogi

Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 12:08 pm
by cp
nice :)

x11 should work without problems, too. at least there is no reason why it shouldn't. though a lightweight x11 doesn't really hurt on older machines.

you can still use wine to run windows applications if there are no Linux counterparts. or even set up a virtual machine and install windows there :)