laptop for dusty vehicle

Bob, what is a p233? it sounds like a 288 processor or is it? interested.

Guy, i think Bob is referring to a system containing a Pentium II 233Mhz processor. It was the first PII released. cheers, Sam.

Guy

Sam is right

Guys,We have travelled for 5 years carrying laptops on every trip. We now run our laptop at all times whilst the vehicle is moving. I have never had a hard drive failure. In fact we often drive with the windows down (dust comming in) and the laptop is running with the cover open in the rear seat behind the driver (me). I strap it in with a seat belt and have it sitting in a padded bag around the base and sides. These days you can also carry around a spare drive for a laptop (they are 2 1/2" disks and you can get a 20GB disk for around $220 you can now also get a little D-Link box that will house these drives and allow you to plug into the USB port - use this to make a backup copy of the main drive). As for us I don't bother carrying a spare as I have never had one break and if it does I have the laptop backups in the office.Think about this a $200-$250 disk is not that expensive a component when you compare your fuel usage/parts and servicing of your vehicle. Now we must also underatand that electronic components do fail and I as a job get involved with failed laptop and desktop computers drives - I am wondering how the previous post person can be sure the drive failed whilst on the 4WD trip, it broke some 4 weeks later - could be anything.Dust may enter your keyboard area so a good dust out with a small brush would be all that should be required. Laptops also use exhaust fans not intake fans and they draw the air from all over the palce so trying to stop the air intake is difficult, but in the padded bag most of the side openings on our systems are covered. I completly opened my laptop after the last trip and did not find that much dust in it, yes there was some but I expected that after 2 years of running with the cover open in the back of our vehicle.We have used two different brands being Toshiba and NEC and as already mentioned we have not had problems with either.Hope this is helpfulDavid

So we have 2 extreme opinions: one from Willie who blames the vibration or dust for a belated hard drive fail, and one from David which is much more encouraging.
This is all useful to me as I'm about to obtain & install a laptop for mapping purposes, internfaced to a GPS so I'll want to be able to see it from the driver's seat.
(Series 80 Cruiser).
I am also in Computers and a reasonably mounted and dust protected 2nd hand lappie seems to be the way to go. Probably 2nd hand.
I agree with David that a spare harddrive for backup would be a cheap failover solution; I'm also intrigued with the idea suggested in this forum of using a flash drive but I think large capacity ones would have to be expensive?
Access to the Internet would seem to be essential these days but how do you do that without incurring heavy mobile charges (if you have a signal even).
I'm new to ExplorOz, I hope I've posted this in the right place.
Doug

G'day, Thanks for all the info, Bob,Guy,Nigel,Sam, P.G.(Tas) and David. I appreciate your input. I will most likely carry my laptop in a spare cameracase that I have. I have been looking at a Toshiba Satellite for around $2700 and by all accounts they seem to be pretty reliable. I also came across a website in Melbourne www.cheapnotebooks.com and they had a refurbished Toshiba Satellite 490CDT for around $1100. But I am hesitant buying over the internet and a used item at that! Better go with the newbie and get a full warranty with it. Cheers, Willie

David, I am learning something here- I am not trying to be sarcastic or anyhting and certainly would like to contiunue carrying a laptop.
I have a Toshiba Satellitte 2520CDT and a 400 CDT. The first one has a 4 Gb HD and second one a 800Mb HD
Seriously how do you copy your Hard drive through your USB port? What do you use, "Ghost" from Norton and then more important how do you copy your first copy onto the "new hard drive"? -- Then how do you manage to get a Hard drive for $220 for a Toshiba Laptop? I'll be in it even for $300. If you can explain how you "transfer your Operating system " from one Hard drive to the other would be good and also what operating system are you using? WIN98(1) WIN98(2), LINUX?

Guy,I will get you Toshiba compatible 2.5" HDD units at 20GB for $250 (I will still make a margin at this price) if you want one. I have a 480CDT that we used to use for mapping and documentation on our last trips so I am very familiar with the Toshiba units. I use Win2000 on all of my systems and you can use a marid of disk copy products Ghost being one, there are a lot of shareware programs available that do bit copies of HDD units on the net. I use one that I have written myself in C. Ghost, DiskCopy or any other program will be fine.Plug the disk into your laptop via USB is fully available (DLink have a product that you should be able to find at most computer shops) or I can get it for you for under $100.Then copy your drive from C to D or whatever the letters are based on your config and you have a full copy of the entire system. In fact you could so this say once a week or more and have a fully backup solution for under $400. Should your main disk fail remove the 2.5" original disk from the laptop and swap in your new disk. On most Toshiba's there is a small panel at the front with a screw in it from the bottom - remove the screen and the cover will come off and you can simply pull the HDD out. Swap the internal caddie onto your new disk and push it back in. The Toshiba's bios will pick it up and run with it straight away.Guy, I sell and implement these solutions to my major corporate clients some of which with over 100 laptops - works for them should work for you. Maybe I should make these up and sell them on the Adventure Shop.David

Aplogies to Willie; it was Guy who was the unbeliver about the reliability of travelling Lappies, not Willie.
My mistake, apologies Willie.
Doug

Thanks for that Sharky. I still have not made a decision on which computer to buy. I live out here in the sticks and getting to the right dealer in the city is problematical. Getting knowledgeble advice from computer 'experts' out here in the bush is also a problem. This forum however has given me quite a bit of insight so I will hopefully make the right decision when the time comes. Cheers, Willie