New HDD into Packard Bell ?

The problem is this :
My sister in law has an old W98 system, running in a Packard Bell box.
She wants to upgrade to XP.
I got a 40GB HDD, and using MY set-up, I've partitioned it, and loaded XP Pro + SP2 and any updates that were outstanding [it's a legit version of XP]

Also loaded Norton NetSec 2004, and updated that.

Set the EMail accounts and the ISP accounts for her and her daughter.
Jobs a good 'un........

To her house, out with the old, and in with the new, added an additional 128MB of RAM to the existing 64MB.

Switch on................nada......................it fails to load.

Cannot remember the exact point at which it became apparent that nothing was going to happen. This was about a week ago, and I've been looking a bit, but haven't really got the time, nor the skills to get the most out of Google............

SO: does anyone know if there is a feature in Packard Bell that prevents you from just plugging in a new HDD, ready loaded ?

Do you have to load everything in from the Packard Bell box ? ie: not do it on my system......

Or: have I missed out the basics ?

TIA

I seem to remember that P-Bell went their own way when IBM presented the PC to the world, to allow the ubiquitous clone to advance.

Have you made sure that the jumpers are configured correctly for the hard drive, and that all of the plugs are in, including the power? I know these sound dumb but I've forgotten one or all of these in my past, hehe.

Hi Foxy, what model of Packard Hell is it?

If it is Win98 the original drive is about 4Gb?

The BIOS does not recognise your 40 Gb drive old chap :)

My wifeypooh has a PB PI/150 with a 2Gb hard drive,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,so I shoved another in there 30,60? not sure......I had to use the HDD co's installation proggy.............that made the BIOS recognise the big drive.

That is your problem mate
:D

There should be a special jumper setting for the 32Gig limit.


You'll have to resize the partitions.

Hrmm, you are all at least partly wrong. The BIOS probably does need to be updated, but there is another thing amiss... When you install XP on a system, it loads specific drivers for that system to boot. When you plug it into another system, it doesn't have the drivers for that system. You HAVE to install the OS on the hardware you will use it on, or at least similar hardware (same motherboard type, etc).

The Grunt:

Quote:

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Switch on................nada......................it fails to load.

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He didn't get as far as Win XP :D

Although your comment is correct.............he needs the box to understand the drive, THEN install XP?

;)

EDIT: Winston:

Quote:

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There should be a special jumper setting for the 32Gig limit.

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I think that this box is too old for that?

Couple issues that might be relevant from my own experience loading XP onto an older machine -

1. More memory. the 128mb addition won't cut it - or it'll be incredibly slow. I'd recommend a half-gig minimum if the machine will take it.

2. Drivers. XP had some serious issues driving my old videocard (s3 virge) and soundblaster live! when it first came round. It may be that it has no video driver to support your current card.

3. Instead of full-install, if you're still able, try a 'repair install' atop the old windows os - XP will act as an 'upgrade edition' and function a bit better, without having to grab down new drivers (should retain your old ones).

Other than that about all I can offer is the old 'It's a packard bell, and that's 99 percent of your problem.' line.

Luck to you, bro.

By fails to load, do you mean it crashes during the OS loading or that it won't even post?

If it's not posting, bear in mind you only changed two hardware items, the HD and the memory, and I can't see a HD causing a box not to post. check the memory frequencies. Some boards get all upset with you when you install non-matching frequencies, or maybe the new RAM is just too fast.

If it's EDO RAM, that has to be installed in matching pairs, like 32MB+32MB+64MB+64MB, but not 32MB+32MB+128MB. If it's SDRAM then that's not an issue.

If it loads part of the way and then crashes, then it's probably because you installed XP on your system and then moved it to another system. The chipset, video, sound, ethernet, USB and modem drivers are all going to be for the wrong hardware.

Then again, maybe you just fux0r3d it all up and like, broke it.

Sorry for the delay in getting back.
Have to work SOMETIME don't you know............

Anyhow: I'm going to print this lot out, and at the W/E I'll be having another go........

I feel that it's more towards where nihil is heading, as the system is old, and [at a guess] it's only got a 4GB HDD, it HAD 64MB SDRAM, as it was singular, I dropped in a 128MB stick I had in the van, [same type] so thats my W/E sorted out :D

I had gotten into a corner viz a vie the Packard Bell part, and am still convinced that there is oing to be more fun and games before I can call this one in as sorted........

Hi Foxy~

Packard Bell.........this is actually the most popular brand of off the shelf, home computer in the UK. The company originally made automobile electronics components, or something like that..........sort of "died" and was bought by four Israeli businessmen. It was a US Corporation in those days.

They made cheap computers using second hand/repaired/refurbished components and were hit by "class actions" and the like. They basically went out of business in the USA. The UK product was made in France, with new components, so is somewhat different. When it all "hit the fan" so to speak, the European company was sold to NEC. They are the second largest electronics company in Holland after Philips, and are a quality act.

It sounds to me as if you have an old, French, Packard Bell?............American Megatrends BIOS? (AMI)

The first problem is that the BIOS almost certainly has an 8.4Gb limit............remember you will need to go to the NEC site and look in the obsolete products area to see if there is an upgrade ;)

The alternative is an interceptor program such as EZDrive, whic overrides the BIOS limitations on post. You may be able to get this from the HDD maker's site?

BlackIce has some useful comments:

1. More memory. the 128mb addition won't cut it - or it'll be incredibly slow. I'd recommend a half-gig minimum if the machine will take it.

2. Drivers. XP had some serious issues driving my old videocard (s3 virge) and soundblaster live! when it first came round. It may be that it has no video driver to support your current card.

3. Instead of full-install, if you're still able, try a 'repair install' atop the old windows os - XP will act as an 'upgrade edition' and function a bit better, without having to grab down new drivers (should retain your old ones).

Other than that about all I can offer is the old 'It's a packard bell, and that's 99 percent of your problem.' line.

#1.You may be restricted to 3x128Mb SDRAM modules.............384 is OK for XP so long as you are not into fancy games.............I would not build an XP box with less than 512 these days.

#2. Yes this could be the problem............you actually haven't got this far yet!.....my wife's had this really weird card in it.............28.8 modem, two sound chipsets and the video chipset............all on the same PCI card!.............I can assure you that there are no XP drivers for that!................I replaced them all with individual cards as it is a Model 928, and has lots of PCI slots in it.

#3. Brilliant idea!..............you can tell he is Navy............they never trusted me with anything bigger than a twenty-five pounder/105mm :D To develop on this idea, have you considered leaving the old (about 4 Gig) drive in, and installing XP on the new drive as dual boot?

As for the "Packard Bell" thing............all you need to watch is if there are weird composite cards, and a very small radio tuner card. The American product is quite different from the European one.

Good luck mate! :D

Rock on Nihil! Ya learn something new every day (or night, as it were). PB over here sucks in a huge way. The really scary part is that we're *still* seeing PB machines for sale in upscale electronics stores .... and that folks are actually buying them. I won't knock a refurbished box, so long as there's quality inside to work with...but damn. PB just screwed it's own pooch on the US market. Really scary also is that Gateway did the same thing - started out a nice, high quality box, turned into a 'cheapest parts from the cheapest vendor' operation. After having my elbows in compaqs lately I begin to wonder... Hence I build my own. At least I know *I* chose the cheap parts when they fry, on those rare occasions they do.

Aye, Navy. We didn't shoot shells at people, we shot Volkswagons at people!
[edit] [side note] Check my avatar. See the little black dash between the smoke and the flame belching out of turret 2's center gun? That's the shell. One hell of a pic, and unique as far as I've seen. Our ship's PR guy (Lt somebodyorother) took it and it resides both on USSIowa.org and in my cruisebook from the 1989 Med deployment.[/sidenote] [/edit]