Toshiba M400 tablet, Windows 7 x64, and fingerprint reader

I struggled with this for quite a while.  No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the fingerprint software to recognize the reader on the Windows 7 x64 install (x86 works fine).  The drivers were installed, everything looked ok, but I would get a “fingerprint device not installed” error when launching the Upek Protector Suite software.

Turns out, Upek has a newer version out (Protector Suite 2009 for Windows 7)  and its free to download.  I uninstalled the driver and old software, rebooted, then installed the new Upek software, and lo and behold, the reader is recognized and I was able to add my fingerprints.

Toshiba M400 Recovery Partition Access

I needed to restore my Toshiba M400 Tablet to it’s factory build at work today, but I’d forgotten to bring in my Restore DVDs.  Fortunately, I found a short-cut that allows you to restore the system directly from the hard drive.

Hold down ’0′ (zero) during boot and you’ll go into the Toshiba recovery console.  About 30 minutes later I was running through the Windows XP initial boot questions.