upgrading a Packard Bell

[Kuasimodem]

If it is a desktop case, there should be room to place the second hard drive under the CDROM. You just have to fashion your own mount for it.

It also requires removing all the drives temporarily, so you can access the space

Did it on my cousins 48xDX100 system. Kept the 500Mb drive as the primary, and used a 4.3Gb Quantum Big(slow)foot for all his programs and stuff. If I can fit a Bigfoot under the CDROM, you should be able to mount a standard size HD in there

[Bob The Great]

Ouch! The dreaded name of PB! My families old Pentium 60 (socket 6 or 5 ) had 2.1Gb limitation in it's bios, and hated running I think.

It will work no matter what. You'll just have to partition it into a billion sections, and make daily sacrafices.

[MegalosSkylaki]

I did a Post on the PB to see who owned one, either here or at The Other Site.

I have a PB Platinum 2240, whi ch is a foundling with Win95 USB ed. I recall.

The box looks like a pizza box N' tower.

The PB's like to mount their HDD's at odd places like the front of the case where a fan should be or at the side of the 3.5 cage.

Upgrade stuuf can be purchased through Allorica at PriorityOne where I once saw a 2 G brand new HDD for sale for $80 (!) --apparently due to the 2.1 limit on a lot of old PB's.

Don't waste your time with a modern HDD because of the IDE limitations to PIO 4 or 5, not UDMA even 33.Waste of a good drive. Fdisk an old HDD and find a spot in the cage. 8 mb might work with 98 and could be partitioned if not.

Priority One took over the "support" for PB (owned by NEC and still a consumer machine ex-North America. Check some European sites for info in a pinch.Stiill sold in Europe/Asia.

Priority One will provide Drivers, Manuals and (old) BIOS upgrades for free--you have to register with an e-mail address. I've called them and sometimes got info from them without paying the fee. Call sales like you want to buy something and see if they can help.

Manuals DO NOT have the numbers of the "Platinum 2240" but rather of the platform it shares with a other PB models.

I'll look tomorrow when I can see straight and won't wake "the Baby" for some relevant info.

I have a Library of some PB manuals and BIOS I've downloaded sitting on another machine and I'll see if I have one for the Platinum 2240 in the morning. There is a utility that will pull the BIOS from the FIC # or serial #--but doesn't seem to work for all models.

As for EDO , that is a problem. One of my PB's uses 3.3v (!) EDO, not 5 v. Don't know about your sisters machine. I'll check further tomorrow.I've tried and gave up finding 3.3v EDO--even at Fry's. Seems like most dealer in 72-pin EDO just don't now and assume--probably correctly--any 72-tin pin EDO is 5v.

Let me see what info I have on my PB and check those sites when you have time. The Platform # I can get and I assume the FIC is the same.This will allow you to get a manual. The PB manuals were decently informative.

Check the PB thread I posted to see if anything is of help.

I hope this is helpful to you.

DOOOOG

[Fingers]

Thanks guys! Top notch replies from everyone This machine predates my venture into the world of computer repair, so now I have a better idea what to expect if she decides to bring it to me (heck, now I even know how to open the case )

[Tomteriffic]

Oh, one other thing, on most PB towers from that era, the mobos are NLX form factor. One huge edge connector on one side, single-stack back connectors, and all of the expansion slots are on a "riser card" which plugs into the mobo. If you get in there and mess with that, make double sure you have everything buttoned up tightly.

On mine, the cards effectively hung upside down. The net result was that one card which was not totally snugged down worked a teensy bit loose and took out the whole mobo when it shorted. Fortunately, it was still under warranty at the time. It was that incident, and waiting two weeks for a repair, that got me into building and fixing my own machines

[MegalosSkylaki]

Briefly looked at the PB Platinum 2240 insides tiday.

HDD as I suspected is on the side wall if one 3.5 bay (occupied by FD) ;the case is devided by a horizontal shelf with the AT PSU and the three 5.5 over the shelf.

Very strong chassis under a u-shaped external case. Essentially, this is a desktop that has been shrunk to the size of the mobo which is flat on the floor of case. A high riser devided the case with slots for PCI & ISA cards. (This was also called the "christmas-tree" design).

The Manual (sorry i forgot the platform #; will lookagain ) supports 128 Mb of either fast page mode (FPM) or EDO memory. There is NO mention of 3.3v being needed which does not surprise as this was built in 96 or so when 3.3v memory was not mainstream.So I assume you can use generic EDO's.there are two banks, with 2 slots each to fill in matched pairs.

My experience with PB is what the BIOS or or wherever you find out the memory and configuration of what is ALREADY in there is unreliable. Hence, you need to physically look to see how many banks are actuallly filled.

A second HDD would have to be placed in a 5.5 bay with an adapter. I've never seen a PB without WD Caviar HD's. My foundling--which is why I bothered with it--has a Dittomax 2 G tape cartridge in addition to the CD-ROM. (May have been an after-market addittion on mine.) So one 5.5 bay is open for a HD.

Adding a HDD and more EDO depends mainly on what is already in the slots--otherwise you need to pull some EDO's to add more memory.The HDD can be added with an adapter if there is an unfilled 5.5 bay.Don't see too many other options for aHDD as only one 3.5 bay filled FD.

Strongcase; interesting design; probably could have functioned nicely if the WIN95 was the (USB) plus version brfore the 98 upgrade.

Were the files converted to FAT 32 from FAT 16 ? Can a CD-RW be added? Is there a Dittomax with cartriges? Tecmar used a "flash memory SW feature that allowed part of the tape to be used like a HD. Good SW if it's there.

DOOOG











DOOOG