Review Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M4438G - Page 5

If it's a lock put on there by the manufacturer or retailer, ask them to remove it. I don't see how it's within their right to restrict the access to it. Also, please use proper english here (and on all forums for that matter).

I've already been to the retailer, and they can't or won't help, saying that the manufacutrer have done it for a reason and that I won't get any joy from them if I ask.

All I need to do is make sure that the USB is set to legacy so I can install the SATA drivers for the Hard Drive so I can do the install. At the moment when it goes through setup it says there is no hard drive installed, and as I don't have a floppy drive I have the SATA drivers on a USB flash memory stick, but it can't be seen either.

I have been told (whether this is true for this notebook) is that sometimes there is a key sequence that will let you get into the extended BIOS, was just wondering if anyone knew it?

Well, I'd have thought that there would be a password to get in to it, but I don't know about a key sequence. I doubt that it would be the same for any other notebook though. You might get somewhere by googling the problem, but since there aren't many english web sites mentioning it, that might not work.

I am surprised that the manufacturer/retailer will not unlock it. Which retailer did you use?

As an alternative, my dad had an IBM given to him by a friend (the friend wasn't very computer-literate, so didn't need it any more). However, it had a supervisor password set by either IBM, or the company that his friend worked for. He found no way to get around it, but he did find one business (although I'm not quite sure what it was called) that was able to get rid of it. Unfortunately, it wasn't cheap. There may be a similar situation with the Fujitsu-Siemens notebook.

I'll do some searching and see what I can find.

Thanks for the help.

The retailer I bought it from was PCWorld (UK), I know they are renound for not actually being the most tech savvy, which I have found to be true when I have dealt with them.

The person I spoke to didn't know if there was a way to get into the extended BIOS, but he was the one who suggested the key sequence.

All I can do in the BIOS is change the time and the Boot Device sequence, that's preety much it, I can't get into anything else as it is not displayed at all anywhere in the BIOS.

This is where my problem is, the SATA Hard Drive is not set as Primary master, the DVD Drive is, and I need to make sure the USB is set to Legacy so it will see the Flash Drive.

Ah right, I was thinking of buying that laptop from PC World as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great notebook except for this small problem, it's probably something that can be overcome, just need to find the answer lol, and for under a grand I thought the price was reasonable as well.

Yeah, the price is great for what it is (I'm getting VAT off too). I tried searching for solutions to the problem, but didn't find anything. What exactly is the content of the BIOS?

i just want to know when or if this machine will be available in north america... it looks so damned good.

(yes i know it has probably been asked already but i am not up toreading 6 pages of posts to find out if it already has been)

It seems FSC will not release M4438 quite soon(I mean couple of weeks or less in one Month),because of M3438 is selling so well.
To Fidget:If u r in North America,why not buy a Dell 9300 or Xps,the same cofigure as m3438 costed nearly the same price(due to exchange rate between Euro and USD)

With regards to the BIOS issue, the only settings I can change in my BIOS and would imagine it will be the same for everyone is:

Date & Time, Boot Sequence and a couple of other bits that really don't make any difference to what happens.

I think I may have worked out a work around, but I have not tested it yet to find out if it will actually work.

The work around that I think may work is using the recovery discs, FSC has kindly supplied a Drivers and Utilities disc which is how you would complete the recovery, BUT they have also supplied another disc which if the recovery disc didn't work for some reason i.e. a new piece of hardware had been installed like a HDD, this second disc takes you through the installation process like a normal format and install.

My thinking is that if I use this process when it has loaded the setup files and I get to the End User Liecence Agreement I can then take that disc out and continue the install using XP Pro.

Like I say I have not tried this yet, but will do soon, as it looks like I need to actually take it back and get it exchanged as the "L" key keeps on coming dislodged and coming away from the keyboard, this I am hoping is a "one off" and not a sign of things to come, as I have found that this is a very nice notebook. I have only had it for a week but I am impressed with it so far.

So I'm assuming then that the USB device is not detected by the laptop when you attempt to do the XP Pro installation?

Nope, nothin is detected, that's why I wanted to get into the extended BIOS, so I could set up the USB to be Legacy so it would recognise the USB device.

What if you were to obtain a USB floppy drive and use that?

I Honestly don't know if that will work, I have a USB Flash Pen Drive, And that's not even seen.

HI guys, I Have exchanged my laptop and have tried formatting using the idea I posted earlier, unfortunately it doesn't work, so we are back to finding out how to get into the extended BIOS

Well, I have a feeling that there is no extended BIOS, and that we'll have to wait until a new BIOS version is available. However, I might be wrong. Just a thought though, is it possible to start up the laptop with a boot CD that will create a virtual floppy disk drive, copy the files over to it, and then boot (without restarting) the Windows XP CD? Just a thought, but I'd have no idea how to do it.

If you need to install a different version of Windows to a laptop with SATA drives check this out: http://www.nliteos.com/

The software nLite allows you to create a customized installation CD for Windows, integrated with service packs and necessary drivers.

More information on how to use can be obtained from:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=89

Hope this could solve the issue.

That looks great. I've downloaded it and trying it out now. I'll prepare an installation CD for when I get this laptop : )