how do i change the cmos jumper for bios password on packard bell a950, i was trying to fdisk it but i keep getting an error of invalid driver specfication, it appears to have A B diskettes but only one floppy drive, and one cdrom, which doesnt appear to be listed as primary, i have looked all over and cant find motherboard specs to figure out which jumper to move for the cmos and ive taken the battery out, but also i have no OS on there now i was using a 95 back up to put me on there and im locked out of the bios to change the drive boot, what do i do now? please anybody LOL

Kitty

Removing the battery should work but you may need to leave it out for a few hours. The computer needs to be unplugged from the wall. If there is a Clear CMOS jumper, it will be 3 pins in a straight line with a jumper over 2 of them. If the computer is unplugged you can't do any harm by moving ANY jumpers that meet that description. Just be sure to restore to the original position. Sometimes operating the power switches while the battery is out and the machine unplugged helps drain residual current faster.

its not plugged in as i have to use my cords for my puter to turn it on i looked all over and dont see any jumpers that are like that really, but its a really old pc the board is all funny lol the battery has no jumpers by it and its next to the memory, not like that of the one picture i did see of the 930, theres some by the processor one says sleep i think and the others say fan and speakers, but i didnt see one that says anything to do with cmos pass or anything really just has j12 n 13 in the middle with no text and i pulled those off, didnt help, what do u mean by power switches? i tell ya ive looked all over this thing. /shakes head

Kitty

"invalid driver specfication"

You probably mean 'invalid drive'?

If you're able to boot from a floppy, then you really don't need to do much in the BIOS - clearing it should be unecessary, changes can be made from the CMOS program

A CD shouldn't be listed as the primary drive - on older systems, the CMOS may not even reflect the presence of a CD drive

Generally, you install Win95 from a bootdisk that loads the DOS CD drivers, then install from the CD. Windows 95 CDs don't themselves boot.

If the hard drive isn't being recognized (assuming it's properly connected) then you would determine or correct that from the CMOS too (if need be) - clearing the CMOS seems pointless, unless you are locked out by a password, or have corrupt data there

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i am locked out, im trying to load the windows files now off the cd i have for ME but i cant find the drive. to load it from, if i cant open the drive i cant load the cd and i cant change the cmos from bios cause of password

Kitty

So... nothing at all really to do with Windows 95 then.

Removing the battery should have cleared the CMOS - and it might've been a good idea to mention that as the actual problem - you can still install WinME using a (wait for it) WinME bootdisk

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the rest of your post

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95 was the orginal OS and im using a 95 startup disk so yes it does have to do with it cause the prompts are different least that of which ive seen are but i cant get past c:\win9x> cause i cant find the drive to load the ME cd, im saying i cant get into the bios because of a password to change it to boot with cdrom support, so i asked how to change the jumpers or anything else i can do since i have no OS on there now, only a 95 start up disk and cd of ME that wont load

Kitty

Oh, ok, I see it was jammed in at the end of your first post

Was the machine unplugged when you pulled the battery? Not all machines have a jumper either.

How do you know you're 'locked out'? You need the right key sequence at the right moment

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No, it really has nothing to do with 95 - you're trying to install ME

Use a WinME bootdisk - format & install - done

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i know because i can hit delete and get into bios with a password prompt and if i try it 3x the system disables on me and if i leave the floppy out it says invalid system something, is there any other way to open the cdrom? with the dos c: prompt? cause cd b d e f doesnt work LOL and neither does just typing B: D: E: F: i tried b cause it has 2 there with only one floppy drive so i was thinking that maybe the B was the rom but no luck

Kitty

A machine that old might not even support CD booting - you've failed to list any specs, but I gather it's likely a 120MHz, originally with only 16Mb RAM - maybe not a great choice for ME

I can say it one more time if that'll help:

Use a WinME bootdisk - select 'with CD-ROM support' from the menu - run setup

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If you are you able to boot from a floppy (I don't think you've clarified that exactly) then you can find bootdisk images here (with CD-ROM support) - if your CD drive is not standard IDE, it gets a little trickier

Yes, it is possible to setup a hard drive with CD access, but it involves editing DOS commands, and it's often better to boot using the correct disk or CD, particularly if you're trying to repartition - although odds are a plain format would be enough

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i dont know anyone with ME i have xp on my puter i just have an me disk and no floppy drive on my puter either LOL

Kitty

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/KILLCMOS.shtml

http://packardbell.com/Template/support/homepage.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fsupport%2f&NRNODEGUID=%7b502EFBB7-9EA9-47B5-9FAF-0D64FB46FBC6%7d&NRCACHEHINT=Guest

I agree, ME would not be a good choice W98SE would be better, you can download a W98SE OEM boot disk from:

http://www.bootdisk.com

I just sent you a gif pic that I think is your motherboard. The 'flash recovery J9 C1' looks to be what you need. It's probably jumpered 1-2. Change that to 2-3, start the computer for a few seconds, turn it off and put the jumper back in the 1-2 position. Hopefully that'll clear everything.

"i dont know anyone with ME i have xp on my puter i just have an me disk and no floppy drive on my puter either LOL"

Yeah, that's just hilarious - get a floppy drive then, or experiment on a more agreeable machine

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ok heres what ive done

i wiped it out fdisked it but realized that i didnt have a choice to cd support it so i went in to bios, locked out. i have no floppy drive on my puter the floppy was made off the one im working on. its a pent 2 i believe like 233 or more mhz with 4 gig hdd LOL i made one partition fat32 and i believe it has 64 mbs ram i have another chip i was gonna switch out thats 64 so it would have 96.

Kitty

i have a floppy sitting here but didnt have the other cable for it, i was just doing this for a friend til i got stuck and realized i was locked out of the bios

Kitty

You start here:

http://support.packardbell.com/uk/

and enter the serial number. If you're lucky you can find a download for a manual.

so is there anyway to make the cd boot from dos then without having to load something else seems how i cant

Kitty

been there all evening looking, online even nothing that realy could help me, should i start the puter without the battery hahaha jk

Kitty

Here's the PB600 motherboard which may be the one:

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/600.htm

It shows J8 as the password clear.

It might also be the 680 or 685 board. The jumpers are the same:

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/680.htm

If you can figure out the motherboard name you can put it in the above URL where the red entry is. That should bring up a pic and jumper settings.

didnt work its a950-twr is the model, i pull up some samsung stuff but i didnt think that was it since it says on the back packard bell

Kitty

sn is p280006449+ pn is 890623

Kitty

Here's the next higher level of that URL. It lists the various motherboards. You could click on them (probably around the 600 series) and see if any look familiar:

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/

As you say, using the part and serial numbers get no results so you may have use the brute-force search method.

guess ill just have to wait til i can get a puter that has a floppy, i wonder did u say that i can get the whole oem 98 from that site jesse?

Kitty

"...you can download a W98SE OEM boot disk from:"

Bah - pesky details - don't cloud the issue with facts

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W98SE OEM boot disk from:

http://www.bootdisk.com

Yes that is a boot diskette, self-extracting/selfcreating WinImage format, btw all versions of Windows/MS-DOS are Licensed and not freeware, abandonware or whatever....

right no i gotcha i still need to get passed that password issue though i think, or wait theres that one site i was sent that had cdrom access with it right? am i able to use the kill programs on it with no OS on it? i mean is that gonna take the password off if nothing else works even without the os?

Kitty

I'm sitting here laughing but I'm totally confused. Do you have a floppy drive or not?? Do you have any idea what you're doing??

If you were to clear the BIOS, would you have a clue on how to correct the settings? Because clearing it doesn't jsut remove the password, it changes ALL the settings! To ClearCMOS, all you need is a DOS program called KILLCMOS...just download it, unzip & copy it to a floppy:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2969.html

I'm still not clear about a lot of the stuff you're saying, but to load WinME, you need a WinME boot floppy, not a Win95 boot floppy. You can download the program to create one here:

http://spock.uccs.edu/pub/bootdisks/bootme.exe

LOL i dont have a floppy on my system, theres no OS on the other system and the floppy drive is on that system. yes i know what im doing. but why i didnt check it out first is beyond me, now if i could just find a blank cd lol so i can burn the 98 on it cause i cant get it to use the cdrom again but the option is there, YES!! i got into the bios. it only have 2 cdrom options and niether set up is how i need it to be, still cant find the cdrom on it through DOS but i think that with a 98 boot up cd i could prolly get it done :) less im missing some other type of cmd to run the cdrom

im glad i can be assuming through all this, cause other wise it would make for a bad time ;)

Kitty

Download the Ultimate Boot CD, boot off it, then use one of the DOS Boot programs to load the CD-ROM drivers...then pop in the Windows CD, change to the CD drive letter, type SETUP & hit ENTER

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

You got into the bios? Did you figure out the password, use killcmos or find the motherboard jumper?

If that PC has the option to boot from the cdrom then you can eventually get an OS installed. But without a floppy drive you may run into problems later on.

... I suspect catnip may be involved

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Re #32

You won't see the CD drives in DOS unless you boot using a bootdisk (floppy) with CD-ROM support.

DerekW

That's what I've been trying to relate (unsuccessfully) - a 'system made' Win95 disk won't have DOS CD support, and she can't (easily) transfer anything from the working machine due to the absence of a floppy drive

Singularly unprepared for the task at hand (& on more than one level)

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I spent serious time trying to do
something to help this post and got
so confused......I even went to the
below site 3 times.May help-Who knows.

Below should work some.On the right
upper part of page is seven buttons
in a curving shape.Slowly move your
Mouse button over them.

http://www.wendi.com/hypnosis/pocket-therapist.html

Rereading your last post I see you've got a floppy on the PB but not on the computer you're using now. Well, same point if not more so. You've already run into a problem by not having a floppy drive--you can't make a floppy bootdisk.

kitty, why not concentrate on the system that's having the difficulty? I think you're confusing everyone by talking about two different systems in the same breath.

Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

actually i got it to work, everyone failed to mention that the win 95 disk i was using does not have the cdrom drivers like 98 and above, thanks for all the answers and effort though, i got the puter running

Kitty

Well actually jboy mentioned it in #37 and several times spoke generally of the importance of a bootdisk with cdrom support.

Perhaps a less meandering description of the problem accompanied by proper punctuation would have cleared this up sooner.

But thanks for posting back. We were beginning to wonder what happened.

Yep, my #36 raised the point too. I would have been surprised if the Ultimate Boot Disk that was mentioned in #33 did not have CD-ROM support.

DerekW

Yeah, I missed that one. I wonder if the password issue was cleared up. It might be a moot issue now anyway.