PC Advice - Putting it Together

[Holley]

After checking cables:

Primary slave Hard Drive - fail

In the first section of an older type bios you usually have four rows for setting IDE devices, if you have one device for each cable they should be set as the master using the jumpers on the back of the drive (jumper settings should be clearle marked, even on PB gear ;-)).  As they are both masters, looking in the bios the first and third entried should be set ('auto' is fine), and the 2nd and fourth (the slaves) should be disabled - if a slave is set and doesn't really exist you'll get the message you stated there ;-)

[Holley]

Yes, Packard Bells have hideous HD installs from the factory.  Go to 'Control Panel' (under settings on the start menu), and 'Add/Remove Programs' - you can remove programs using an automated system from there, provide you havn't accidentally deleted the script that usually sits in with the program itself.  Most Windoes programs put files in system folders, and make changes to the Registry (a database of everything in windows), so if you remove a folder you're only getting part of the space used back.

Also remember to empty the recycle bin (right-click on it) as that counts as used space when checking disks.  You should be able to free some space by getting rid of programs, but the only way to make Windows 'lean & mean' (comparatively) is to format the harddisk and re-install carefully - Win95 with sound, video and Internet can be cut back to about 50Mb.  Don't try that without being sure what you're doing though, as getting Windows to run well is an art form (getting it to run shabbily is easy, lol).

[Holley]

It's old enough to not have space for one of those horrible hidden setups, and for the system restore to come on 2 CDs and install loads of rubbish as standard ;-)

Because it's no longer an all-PB system using a system restore wouldn't be a good idea - they don't take into account that you may have changed hardware, not usually a problem but it may try to force chipset drivers for the motherboard (or it might just crash out, lol).  Also the old PB system restores that work from CD usually undo any custom partitions, which is one of the perks of blanking the harddisk in the first place (cue: aaargh!).

[Holley]

If it's 750Mb I'm not surprised it's full!  It possible this was a smaller than standard drive with a hidden partition, or that only the first part of the drive has been partitioned.  To find out try and get your hands on a copy of 'Partition Magic' - it's kinda like HDPrep ;-)

'Master/Single' means the same as 'master' so thats fine BTW

[Holley]

Gotta partition it before windows will pick it up (unlike Amigas it won't list anything at all if it's not the right kinda partition).

Open a dos box and type 'fdisk'

You get asked if you want large disk support (Yes ;-)), you then get a text menu.  1st thing is to pick the second drive (option 5 IIRC), then delete any 'non-windows' partitions, and create a new one - should be self-explanatory, but if in doubt close the dos box (changes are only saved when the program quits) and ask for help.

When creating a Fat32 partition up to 8Gb has a cluster size of 4k, over is 8 (so stick with 8Gb partitions if you want to keep a library of icons, lol).

After doing that you can reboot and format the new disk, move as much as possible to the new partition as Windows likes loads of swap space ;-) 10Mb will make it crawl!

[Holley]

Glad to hear it's all working now!  And respect to Spirantho's generous nature :-)

[Holley]

a new case can be got for £20 ;-)

Basically with 'a' driver installed (ie. the default 4-bit VGA one) it won't pick up that an updated one is needed.  You can go into device manager (one of the tabs under 'system' in the control panel), find the display adaptor, go into it's properties, and click on 'update driver'.  The other thing is to check for in an auto-setup program (setup.exe) in the drivers you downloaded, which will do the updating for you - I know NVidia and ATI drivers will only install that way most of the time!

[Holley]

ok, first off, check the driver you downloaded and see if it has a file called 'setup.exe' in it - if so run that and it should update.  If not then the best thing to do is what I said before (not the 'add new hardware' bit!!) - go to 'System' in the Control Panel, go to the 'Device manager' tab, find 'Standard VGA Display' under display adaptors, go into it's properties, click on 'Update Driver', when it gives you the list of drivers click on 'Have Disk' and point it at the driver you downloaded, if it doesn't like that then you probably have a driver for a different version of Windows or something ...

(note that if it's an achive you'll have to uncompress it first).

[Holley]

okay, if you're getting the option to use 256 colours then somethings installed. There isn't a video connector on the motherboard, is there?  if so it'll need to be disabled with a jumper on the motherboard, or another setting in the bios somewhere (uhoh!) - note thats not the AGP/PCI setting ;-).

In Add/Remove programs is there something listed for the graphics chip that was on the old motherboard?  If so that'll need taking off.

BTW Do you get the option to use more than 256 colours?

After all this it's probably going to be something to do with the driver itself, as a slightly different model of graphics card or one for a different version of windows can cause this kind of behaviour.

It's also possible that the PB install of Windows might be broken so that not all of the new driver is going in right - if /that/ is the case the best thing to do is start with a fresh install of Windows (which would also give you more space ), but you'd need to collect all the drivers and put them in a safe place before trying that! (plus you'd need a proper copy of Win98 and a serial number).

This is all I can think of off the top of my head :-? Of course it's easier when you've got the computer in front of you ... this kinda rubbish isn't unusual with old PCs :-(

[Holley]

Funilly enough my other half has just had this EXACT problem on her Win98 machine, which has an ATI card in it.  I've checked everything, and it looks like I'm going to have to re-install - I doubt there's anything wrong with the driver, just that Windows won't accept it.

I can run you off a copy of Windows if you like, but you'll have to find your own serial number for it - you should have one that came with the PB, that'll work with a regular copy of windows too.

Re-installing isn't too bad as your drives are ready etc, and you have your drivers, it will make it go quicker too!

If anyone else can think of a different solution to this let me know :-?

[Holley]

ok, a PC should work ok without any motherboard drivers, they just speed things up (enabling any custom abilities in the chipset).  It's something you can worry about later, and of course your current Windows install will by trying to load the drivers from the old PB board ;-)

The following instructions are written from Win98 'Second Edition' so may not be exactly the same for a first edition ...

With Win98 you need both the disk and the serial number, it's also a good idea to have a copy of DirectX as most modern graphics drivers require it - you can get it from here.

You start by setting the Bios to boot from the CD (rather than disk, Windows 95 was the last one that /needs/ to boot from floppy).  When you boot from the CD you should get a startup menu saying 'Boot from CD' or 'Boot from Hard Drive'.  Once you choose boot from CD you get another menu asking to start Win98 setup, start with CD support, or start without CD support - choose the middle one.

in the startup text it should mention which letter is assigned to the CDRom (probably 'E'), make a mental note of that.  Type:

Code: [Select]

[size=medium]
E:               //or whatever CDRom letter
cd\win98
format C: /q         // the q is to skip verifying BTW
[/size]
this will clear the 850Mb drive.  After this you just type 'setup' and press enter, and the rest is in a GUI with instructions. (had you chosen to go straight to setup it would pick up the old install, and a full Win98 disk won't install over an existing install!).

Once Windows is done (200+Mb and about 45 mins later) you can install DirectX, try the video drivers again, install internet settings etc etc.  Your second drive should show up fine without making any changes :-) IIRC I don't think SmartSuite needs re-installing, just the Shortcuts re-making.

[Holley]

It might work (for instance new-ish ATI cards will ask for DirectX, but if you skip it it works fine). If not I'll do you a care package, lol ;-)

If you have any recent PC magazine cover CDs they might have a copy on 'em (more likely on a games magazine).