Trying to resurrect Packard Bell C-110 Multimedia

I have a Packard Bell C-110 P-I 120mhz computer. At the time I just
wanted it for the hard-drive, which I put in another computer and
formatted.

This old PB has *everything* that came with it, all the old software
extras, the printer, everything. So, just for grins I'd like to get it
up and running. However, when I try to reload the Win95 that came with
it - apparently a version exclusively for PB - it gets partway through
the process and bails out.

I've read that there's some kind of info partition that came on the
original factory drive that's needed to re-install the O/S. Since
that's gone, is there a way to get around this?

Yes, I know, it's an obsolete O/S on an old, slow computer and the
PB's had a terrible reputation, but I'd like to get it running again
just for grins. I did see it run one time before pulling the h/d.

Thanks for all input.

I see I asked this once before. Here's the specific issue that came
up:

"It starts the process of loading but gets to a certain point and
gives the message "unable to load Wincalc" and asks if I want to
continue anyway, however it doesn't offer a button to cotinue, only
one to exit. "


I recall I tried this several times and always ran into the same
issue.

Hi Doc !

I would be willing to bet that you have a bad CD. It's looking for a file to
install the windows calculator, and that has nothing to do with your
computer, it's a software issue. Bad CD.

You can load any version of Win95 or 98 that you want to. You don't HAVE to
install a PB version. You will however have to track down any driver that
you many need for your PB, but that is always a lot of fun ! It's quite
doable.

Matter of fact, if you install Win98SE, it will quite likely have all the
drivers already.

Keep us posted.

bob


--
boBWatts®©
EartH
Watts Carburetion Service
Whizzbang Computers




"Doc" wrote in message
...
I see I asked this once before. Here's the specific issue that came
up:

"It starts the process of loading but gets to a certain point and
gives the message "unable to load Wincalc" and asks if I want to
continue anyway, however it doesn't offer a button to cotinue, only
one to exit. "


I recall I tried this several times and always ran into the same
issue.

On Jan 1, 12:39*pm, "Robert E. Watts" wrote:

You can load any version of Win95 or 98 that you want to. You don't HAVE to
install a PB version. You will however have to track down any driver that
you many need for your PB, but that is always a lot of fun ! It's quite
doable.

Matter of fact, if you install Win98SE, it will quite likely have all the
drivers already.


The thing is, the interface on the PB has a special look, as I recall
it was a room full of icons that you clicked on. I could be wrong but
I think that was a function of the special edition of Win95.

If it's a bad CD, any way I could dump the contents to a folder on
another machine, and insert the needed file from another O/S disk,
then burn a new CD? I have copies of 98 & 98SE.

If it's a bad CD, it may be impossible to copy the data where the CD is "bad",
i.e. scratched or scuffed. But it's worth a try... Ben Myers

On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:47:02 -0800 (PST), Doc wrote:

On Jan 1, 12:39*pm, "Robert E. Watts" wrote:

You can load any version of Win95 or 98 that you want to. You don't HAVE to
install a PB version. You will however have to track down any driver that
you many need for your PB, but that is always a lot of fun ! It's quite
doable.

Matter of fact, if you install Win98SE, it will quite likely have all the
drivers already.


The thing is, the interface on the PB has a special look, as I recall
it was a room full of icons that you clicked on. I could be wrong but
I think that was a function of the special edition of Win95.

If it's a bad CD, any way I could dump the contents to a folder on
another machine, and insert the needed file from another O/S disk,
then burn a new CD? I have copies of 98 & 98SE.

Hi Doc!

"Doc" wrote in message news:d21befe6-25cd-4e68-9b69-

The thing is, the interface on the PB has a special look, as I recall
it was a room full of icons that you clicked on. I could be wrong but
I think that was a function of the special edition of Win95.


I agree, the "special" Packard Bell edition looks neat, but it is only a PB
version, not a Microsoft "special" version. Just stuff that Packard Bell
added to the mix.


If it's a bad CD, any way I could dump the contents to a folder on
another machine, and insert the needed file from another O/S disk,
then burn a new CD? I have copies of 98 & 98SE.

It's worth a shot. But it's been my experience that you will come across
other corrupted files also. It's rarely just one file that gets messed up.

I honestly don't know how you can insert files into an "install" like that.
I have only ever been successful at that when I am offered the opportunity
to "browse" for a missing or corrupted file. Then I merely insert a
different CD, let it find the file, then go back to the original when it
complains about the wrong CD in the reader.

You could "try" one of those CD fixer devices/polishes. Or try to find a PB
CD on eBay.

In the meantime, load your Win98 so you can use the machine. :-)

bob

On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:47:02 -0800 (PST), Doc
wrote:

On Jan 1, 12:39*pm, "Robert E. Watts" wrote:

You can load any version of Win95 or 98 that you want to. You don't HAVE to
install a PB version. You will however have to track down any driver that
you many need for your PB, but that is always a lot of fun ! It's quite
doable.

Matter of fact, if you install Win98SE, it will quite likely have all the
drivers already.


The thing is, the interface on the PB has a special look, as I recall
it was a room full of icons that you clicked on. I could be wrong but
I think that was a function of the special edition of Win95.

If it's a bad CD, any way I could dump the contents to a folder on
another machine, and insert the needed file from another O/S disk,
then burn a new CD? I have copies of 98 & 98SE.


Unless someone has a copy of the special Packard Bell
software interface (it's just going to be an application
running on win95, not part of win95 itself), your only hope
to get that working is to copy off the files used for that.

First let's back up a bit. When you're doing the
installation, is it doing a standard win95 installation or
is it doing more of an OEM imaging operation where it is
copying a preset configuration and/or entire drive partition
image? I don't recall exactly what Win95 installation
process looked like but would guess a lot like the Win98
process.

Also keep in mind that it may be possible to install
Win98/98SE and also install that Packard Bell special
interface... or maybe it's not, but in general a Win95 app
may install and work on 98, if you can locate the associated
files to install it.

Yes there is a chance you could dump the files onto another
system and add those that are missing/unreadable. You may
need the Win95 files though (or it might be Win95OSR2, a
later version of win95?), not the 98 or SE files if you
really want Win95 on it instead of Win98. Generally
speaking I would recommend either Win95 or Win98 modified
with "98Lite" (Google searching should find it) to make 98
take up less memory and processor time, if the system is
Pentium 133 or slower, or has less than 48MB of memory.
That is if you plan on actually using it instead of having
it running only for nostalgic reasons.

If Win95 CD is set up like Win98 was, there may be a Win95
folder on the CD which has a few setup and loader related
files then a bunch of *.cab files. Try copying the contents
of this folder if it exists, to a folder on another system
then see what won't copy and get the corresponding files
from same version of the Win95 CD. It's not necessarily
important to remake a new CD, if you had these files in a
folder on the drive then you can simply boot a Win95 or DOS
boot floppy on the PB system then run the setup from DOS.
It will install much faster reading the installation files
from the hard drive than if it had been reading them from
the CD.

Also keep in mind that as old as this system is, the CDROM
drive could easily be poor at reading discs today. Perhaps
some portions of your PB CD are harder to read but maybe a
newer optical drive could still read them. With that in
mind you might try temporarily (or permanently as a
replacement drive) putting a different optical drive in the
PB system and retrying the original installation. That is,
if you find a different system can read all the files in a
copy operation then it seems there is still hope for the old
CD to work with a different drive in the PB.

On Jan 1, 9:20*pm, kony wrote:

First let's back up a bit. *When you're doing the
installation, is it doing a standard win95 installation or
is it doing more of an OEM imaging operation where it is
copying a preset configuration and/or entire drive partition
image? *I don't recall exactly what Win95 installation
process looked like but would guess a lot like the Win98
process.



There are 3 disks that are part of the process. There's an update,
restore & recovery 3.5 floppy. A Master CD that has Windows 95 among a
bunch of other software and a Windows 95 Companion CD. I copied all of
them to folders on another system, had no "unable to copy" messages
though the master CD copy did seem to bog a bit toward the end.

Something I notice is that on both the "Master CD" and the "Companion
CD" are folders labeled WIN95. The contents aren't identical but there
are numerous files with the same name such as DELTEMP.COM,
EXTRACT.EXE, SMARTDRV.EXE, SAVE32.COM. Both have a number of .cab
files.

On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 06:16:21 -0800 (PST), Doc
wrote:

On Jan 1, 9:20*pm, kony wrote:

First let's back up a bit. *When you're doing the
installation, is it doing a standard win95 installation or
is it doing more of an OEM imaging operation where it is
copying a preset configuration and/or entire drive partition
image? *I don't recall exactly what Win95 installation
process looked like but would guess a lot like the Win98
process.



There are 3 disks that are part of the process. There's an update,
restore & recovery 3.5 floppy. A Master CD that has Windows 95 among a
bunch of other software and a Windows 95 Companion CD. I copied all of
them to folders on another system, had no "unable to copy" messages
though the master CD copy did seem to bog a bit toward the end.

Something I notice is that on both the "Master CD" and the "Companion
CD" are folders labeled WIN95. The contents aren't identical but there
are numerous files with the same name such as DELTEMP.COM,
EXTRACT.EXE, SMARTDRV.EXE, SAVE32.COM. Both have a number of .cab
files.

I'd put the entire win95 CD's contents in a folder on the
hard drive of the intended system (if convenient, then boot
to DOS floppy) or make a CD now. If the install still
stalls you might try disabling things in the bios until
after the install is finished, and pulling out any extra
cards installed (which shouldn't be necessary, but I'm
pretty much guessing at this point as it's been far too long
since I'd had to deal with Win95 install issues, what few
times I'd done it in past years it had worked).

On Jan 2, 8:31*pm, kony wrote:
On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 06:16:21 -0800 (PST), Doc





wrote:
On Jan 1, 9:20*pm, kony wrote:

First let's back up a bit. *When you're doing the
installation, is it doing a standard win95 installation or
is it doing more of an OEM imaging operation where it is
copying a preset configuration and/or entire drive partition
image? *I don't recall exactly what Win95 installation
process looked like but would guess a lot like the Win98
process.

There are 3 disks that are part of the process. There's an update,
restore & recovery 3.5 floppy. A Master CD that has Windows 95 among a
bunch of other software and a Windows 95 Companion CD. I copied all of
them to folders on another system, had no "unable to copy" messages
though the master CD copy did seem to bog a bit toward the end.

Something I notice is that on both the "Master CD" and the "Companion
CD" are folders labeled WIN95. The contents aren't identical but there
are numerous files with the same name such as DELTEMP.COM,
EXTRACT.EXE, SMARTDRV.EXE, SAVE32.COM. Both have a number of .cab
files.

I'd put the entire win95 CD's contents in a folder on the
hard drive of the intended system (if convenient, then boot
to DOS floppy) or make a CD now. *If the install still
stalls you might try disabling things in the bios until
after the install is finished, and pulling out any extra
cards installed (which shouldn't be necessary, but I'm
pretty much guessing at this point as it's been far too long
since I'd had to deal with Win95 install issues, what few
times I'd done it in past years it had worked).- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I may have a working copy of the 95 CD
What is the number on the CD


You also said you formatted the HD
With what does version etc.

No special partition was on HD to my knowledge



You can install 95 right off the CD if it is readable


Partway-
Is it possible it has wriiten no files to the HD at all