Packard bell imedia 5055
 

Hey guys :) Im abit of a novice with computers so any help would be much appreciated. I have a packard bell Imedia 5055 which was purchased in 2002, my floppy disk drive does not seem to work so i cannot use my recovery disk which came with the computer as i am trying to restore my computer to factory settings. I cannot seem to find any drivers or (any material for the matter) on the packard bell websites to help me. Also my computer gives you the option to create a master CD, i cannot find the 'Packard Bell Master CD creator' which is stated in the book. Which is needed for smart restore, snapysys etc. I can only conclude that viruses over the years have erased certain files?!? If anyone can shed any light on this matter it would be great!! :D Thanks

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

What operating system is/was it running? What are the specs of the device?

It's unlikely you'll be able to find copies of the original install media now, but generic XP CDs can work. It would require more user-involvement this way though.

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

have you tried hitting F10 or F11 at boot to see if the recovery partition is accessable without the floppy

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

My current operating system is windows XP......
My specs are intel (R) celeron(R) CPU 2.20GHZ
219GHZ 736MB of RAM (hope this helps) Where would i find these CD's?

I have tried the recovery partition however i do not really understand the codes etc and don't feel confident enough to play around with it and cause more harm than good!!

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

what options do you get?

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

I get two options: To either start Microsoft XP or to start Microsoft windows recovery console. When going into the console it gives me a choice to load C:/windows and then it is open for commands, it says type help for a list of commands and there are quite a few however i do not know what they do, so I don't really want to risk ruining anything.

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

what is it your doing to get this?

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

Pressing F11 at the boot...

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

can you access the bios? F2 or Del key at post. Have a look around see if there is the abilty to allow access in there somewhere.

---------- Post added at 21:34 ---------- Previous post was at 21:34 ----------

have you tried F10 also?

---------- Post added at 21:35 ---------- Previous post was at 21:34 ----------

also if you get the safe mode options is there an advanced options menu ? if so whats in there

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

Before i do this what am i looking for and wanting to acheive... I'll try F10 whilst im at it too

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

you are trying to gain access to the systems own recovery options. You should be offered a recovery to factory state which is what you want

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

I couldn't find anything in the bios after hitting F2 to suggest anything to do with recovery etc ... After pressing F10 i got the same two options as before however i had the option to go into the advanced menu which you suggested and these where my options:

Safe Mode
Safe Mode networking
Safe Mode with command prompt
Enable boot logging
enable VGA mode
Last Known good configuration
Directory Services Restore Mode
Debugging Mode
Disable Automatic Restart mode on system failure
Start windows normally
Reboot
Return to OS choices menu

I thought to look into " Directory services restore mode" which then asks me whether this should be in windows home edition or recovery console

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

Recovery console is nothing to do with restoring factory defaults, it's for troubleshooting/fixing certain problems.

Have you tried pressing ALT + F10 when booting?

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

What happens when you choose the Start XP option after pressing F11?

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

ALT + F10 does not seem to do anything.......And windows just boots as normal after pressing F11....anyway to find a recovery partition if i had one?

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

START Button > Right Click Computer > Manage > Disk Management

Then look at how many partitions show up. If you only have a C: drive but 2 partitions show up then there maybe a recovery partition, likewise if you have a C: and D: drive and 3 partitions show.

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

In disk managament the upper box is empty and the lower section has cd-rom 0 and underneath that CD-rom 1....doesnt seem to show my HDD

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

http://support.thetechguys.com/layout.aspx?ID={c49dcbc3-5d7d-4648-b7de-4f33b636dd5e}&CatID={0f14f6c1-95cb-4ba0-bcc3-22ac086e666a}

Gives you the proper way to do the Packard Bell Restore.

As you don't have a working Floppy drive then you can try http://www.digitaldatasolutions.co.u...isk%20Creater/ on a working computer. It will create a bootable CD for you, which will boot you into recovery providing you haven't wiped the partition or had the hard drive replaced.

The recover partition will not show in windows as the partition is marked as hidden.

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

Disk manager should show all partitions, hidden or otherwise, but often there's a bug/fault that makes it show no hard drives at all (sounds like you have it).

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

Correct. I meant it would not show in My Computer.
Regarding creating Master CDs, there should be a program called Smart Restore under your start menu (All Programs > Packard Bell Support > SmartRestore), within that program you can launch the Recovery CD creator. If no such option is available then you can contact Packard Bell (acer) on 0871 467 0008.

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

I have tried that useful boot website and it still just boots as normal which is a bit of a bugger, any idea why it doesnt work?!! I might buy some more CD's just incase the one i am using is abit dodgey!! I have tried smart restore also however it asks for cd-rom 1 which i do not have or know of!!

.....Just out of interest if i were to buy windows 7 or vista would this solve my problems and make my pc run smoother? Like as a last chance kinda thingy?? Thanks for helping btw much appreciated!!

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

Windows 7 is a better choice than vista, I've had 7 running on 1GHz Centrino based tablets without a problem, it has a smaller footprint than vista too.

How much Ram does the machine have? and what is the processor / hard drive capacity?

Re: Packard bell imedia 5055
 

I dont think my computer would be compatable for windows 7, the spec for it shows you need 1GB Ram and my computer only shows 977MB however i have bought a new laptop in the meantime.

In regards to my computer recovery i did manage to get the disk to work from the website you gave me http://www.digitaldatasolutions.co.u...isk%20Creater/ and it took me so far before it asked me for MASTER CD 1 I can only boot my computer in safe mode as none of my start up icons appear..... In regards to smart restore it also asks me for CD-ROM 1 but it does have 'a floppy disk sign' which is a recovery disk creator.... This only gets so far before an error message appears 'error 6'.... I have bought a USB floppy disk as i felt my floppy drive was not working properly. When i had both USB floppy drive and my old floppy drive in at the same time it shows a floppy drive symbol on the smart restore. However it stills wants to work with my old floppy drive which doesnt work. So i took out the cable leading to the floppy drive so it wouldnt detect the drive and only the USB drive. Now the symbol indicating 'a floppy disk' (From smart restore) is no longer there even though i have my USB Drive present. Any help?!!