Win95 on Packard-Bell

[c96drumm]

Hi. I have an old Packard Bell 233Mhz PC that I just installed a spare 30GB hard drive in. When I try to install Win95 with the startup floppy and installation CD, it stops the installation and informs me that it is not an IBM PC and that Win95 cannot be installed on it . Anyone know of a way around this?

[glc]

Sounds like you have an IBM restore disk, not a Packard Bell restore disk or a generic Windows CD. You can't force this install, you need proper media.

[c96drumm]

It's the Microsoft Windows 95 boot and installation discs. This PC had 95 on it before, but it was already installed when I bought it used, so I don't know if it was installed with these particular discs.

[GaryRouth]

. . . you mention that you just put the new 30gb drive in: was the older drive still working? If so, you might want to leave well-enough alone and put the older drive back in.

The newer drive has a lot of hurdles to jump: it probably won't be recognized in full by the Bios, so will need some sort of "drive overlay" to work. If the Win95 is the original version, partitions will be limited to 2gb each in size, so you'll end up with a truckload of partitions (not very handy to use).

And if the older drive is functional, and if you have room enough, you can skip installing Win95 on the new drive, and just use it as a slave for extra storage = no need to put an OS on a slave drive. You'll still face the hurdles i just mentioned earlier though, if the Win95 is the first version. If the version is "OSR2", then you can use FAT32 and use one partition for the whole 30gb - but you still might have to use a drive overlay program if the motherboard's Bios doesn't support that large a drive.
. . . Gary

[...and, it certainly does sound like an IBM restore disk, like glc mentions. If it's a generic MS Win95 CD, then that's all you should see on the label: pretty much just "Windows 95" with not much else...]

[c96drumm]

I looked closer at the CD and floppy, they say "for distribution with a new PC", but don't specify the brand or anything, so I guess I was provided with the wrong stuff when I bought the PC. The old drive still works, so I'll take Gary's advice and use the 30 GB drive as a slave.
But I also wonder if I can copy an image of the old drive over my network with Nero or Ghost or something and transfer it to the new drive.
Thanks for the replies, everyone!

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by c96drumm But I also wonder if I can copy an image of the old drive over my network with Nero or Ghost or something and transfer it to the new drive. Thanks for the replies, everyone!

You should be able to ghost the old hard drive but then you will be going down the road that Gary has already pointed out to you, possible incompatibility with the hard drive and a "truck load" of debilitating partitions.