I'll just have to give it a go with the discs I have, the floppy you provided and the tattoo tool and guide from the passion pb site I guess.
Just need to keep an eye out for a motherboard.

there is a PB 850 socket 7 in US (posted further back in this thread) for silly price/shipping but from what I can tell it's a revision D (4).
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/850.htm
Doesn't say much about differences between the two.

I might put an offer in on that motherboard for a sensible price if it's still there and I can't find anything locally (taking into account expensive shipping also) and see if he accepts.
A cyrix 300 won't be hard to find.

Once I have that I can start trying to install.

It's been a roller coaster couple of days finding and reading up on loads of packard bell suff!
Just wanna say thanks for your help 😀 And I'll definitely keep you/this thread updated as I get further along with my build, but for now it's just waiting to find parts.

If you or anyone wants copies of my master CD's I don't mind uploading them. And IF I can get it all working I will provide a tattoo.bin as well for anyone that is doing a Club 30 / club 300x again.

As for CPU, that board can support any So7 CPU with 2.8V or higher VCore, so if you come across any old Pentium (even a P75...) you can stick that in until such time as you find the MII-300. CPU doesn't in any way influence software install.

True I guess.
I've just been intending on putting in a cyrix 300mhz for sakes for originality, but I suppose at end of the day it doesn't really matter too much what CPU. Might as well use a better one...

Also, a bit of good news!
As luck would have it I was bored this morning so was entertaining myself by trawling through the web looking at old packard bell stuff and I found a guy with a bunch of old packard bell computers, low and behold - one of them a Club 30...
Messaged the guy and he has an original master floppy #6760030000.
He's sent me the .ima image file of it and I will host on my Mediafire in case anybody wants or needs it http://www.mediafire.com/file/2gvh3mmw2k8itb9/file

All being well I can find a motherboard soon 😀

I have a motherboard complete with processor and ram on the way!

I also have another question - If installing using the Packard Bell restore CD's, would a normal windows key for 98FE work?
I assume that PB wouldn't have been allowed to screw around with the issuing of windows keys?

NEC/PB Tattoo utils: http://www.mediafire.com/file/jrmzqiv8y2z4xol … nec_pb.rar/file

Richy85 wrote on 2020-08-31, 20:02:

I have a motherboard complete with processor and ram on the way!

I also have another question - If installing using the Packard Bell restore CD's, would a normal windows key for 98FE work?
I assume that PB wouldn't have been allowed to screw around with the issuing of windows keys?

Not sure about keys, but these systems definitely had an OEM, not retail, license.

Ello. Me again...

SO. Have original motherboard, cpu, ram.
Seems that everything is working, I'm detecting HDD and CD drive in post and floppy drive seems to work.

Trouble is, I don't seem to be able to boot from restore media? I've got a correct boot floppy version for this PC and CD's but says

Verifying DMI Pool Data ..................

Remove disks or other media
Press any key to restart

That's with the floppy in, if I have it out it comes up with boot disk failure - obviously because it's trying to boot from a blank HDD.

So I guess something's up with the boot files on the floppy? Or is there a way I can get into command prompt and do something that way?

Ok so I have the boot floppy files for my cd's, but I think the issue is that I need to create a bootable floppy for them.
I've tried a boot disk creator for a regular version of win 98 and it booted from floppy fine but said incorrect cd.
I've tried multiple ways of creating a boot disk for my files but just can't seem to get it working.
Closest I've got is where it says starting win 98 and then says something about wrong version of ms dos and something about COMMAND

Did you try to create them from within a Windows 98 install? That should work.

I've been trying to create the boot floppy from XP as that's the only other machine I have with a floppy.

I've been using the format tool on the floppy then creating a bootable dos disk and trying to copy files over.

Is it at all possible to just boot from CD or do I HAVE to have the boot floppy?

Richy85 wrote on 2020-10-05, 06:30:

Is it at all possible to just boot from CD or do I HAVE to have the boot floppy?

The CDs aren't bootable iirc. Also with the old Hercules builds like this, some needed tools are only on the floppy, not on the CD.

Right. Well, like I say I have the files but am having issues creating a floppy for then that's bootable.
I tried the floppy creation tool you sent which does boot from floppy but that says wrong version of CD...

Ok so I've got floppy working, AND I've tattooed the HS. Unfortunately the name i used for format name isn't pairing with the master CD... I used Hercules as per the passion pb website but it doesn't like it.

Also, I just looked on the master CD in that DIR and there isn't a 24x00002.LST file, only 24x00001.LST

===================
EDIT:

Right, so was sitting here thinking... 24X00002.LST is awfully similar to the format part number #5524010002 I used from the Passion.pb website
in tattoo the 55 was already set in so you just enter the 24010002.
Then I started thinking back to a post you made earlier on in the thread about country regions.
Then it made sense.
I don't have a 24X00002.LST on my master CD because I have the UK/English CD's and the Passion.pb site is made from French models/numbers etc.
I DO have a 24X00001.LST though...
So I went back in and modified the tattoo with a format number of 24010001 and it worked perfectly!! =D

So about an hour and a half later (and getting lucky with a Win 98 key) I now have a fully functioning Club 30 with original factory OS & programs 😀

Just like to say thanks for the tips and help you've given (also the guy on the retro Packard Bell facebook group was awesome in helping me make a bootable restore floppy with my files!)

I will stick some pics up at some point when I've got the internals all sorted - Using a 2.5" ex laptop sata HD drive on an SATA/IDE connector at the moment and it's kinda just floating in mid air 🤣.

I have some spare drives so may do it all again to make a YouTube video or of everything I've learnt during this experience and the Tattoo process etc(as the Passion.pb site isn't the easiest to follow. Hopefully I can help some other fellow Packard Bell enthusiasts out.

Wow, congratulations!

dionb wrote on 2020-08-20, 14:01:

As for CPU, that board can support any So7 CPU with 2.8V or higher VCore, so if you come across any old Pentium (even a P75...) you can stick that in until such time as you find the MII-300. CPU doesn't in any way influence software install.

I just wanted to mention that the FR500/M5SIB has (undocumented) jumper settings to go down to at least 2.2v as I've used one of these boards to run a K6-2/333 at some point (for testing, iirc I ran Win98 Beta 3 on there and also tested a build with my PCI Blade3D on these).
I have both the M5SIB and the PB FR500, but I don't remember which of the 2 boards I used for this purpose. My guess would be it was the PB board.

It was also able to run at 75MHz FSB. I may have tried to run the K6-2/333 (or it may have been a 350MHz part) at 300MHz (4*75MHz, just for kicks).

But it should have (undocumented) jumper settings to run at least a K6-2 with 2.2v

Iirc the PB board also supported linear burst, which is a Cyrix feature (just mentioning this ftr, I'm pretty sure you already know all this 😜 ).

Tetrium wrote on 2020-10-06, 22:40:

I just wanted to mention that the FR500/M5SIB has (undocumented) jumper settings to go down to at least 2.2v as I've used one of […]
Show full quote

dionb wrote on 2020-08-20, 14:01:

As for CPU, that board can support any So7 CPU with 2.8V or higher VCore, so if you come across any old Pentium (even a P75...) you can stick that in until such time as you find the MII-300. CPU doesn't in any way influence software install.

I just wanted to mention that the FR500/M5SIB has (undocumented) jumper settings to go down to at least 2.2v as I've used one of these boards to run a K6-2/333 at some point (for testing, iirc I ran Win98 Beta 3 on there and also tested a build with my PCI Blade3D on these).
I have both the M5SIB and the PB FR500, but I don't remember which of the 2 boards I used for this purpose. My guess would be it was the PB board.

It was also able to run at 75MHz FSB. I may have tried to run the K6-2/333 (or it may have been a 350MHz part) at 300MHz (4*75MHz, just for kicks).

But it should have (undocumented) jumper settings to run at least a K6-2 with 2.2v

Iirc the PB board also supported linear burst, which is a Cyrix feature (just mentioning this ftr, I'm pretty sure you already know all this 😜 ).

Will keep that in mind, a k6-2 would be a nice little upgrade above the cyrix and am planning on getting another Club 30 when I see one so may try that - I take it the 500mhz k6-2 will work just fine?

As for now, I'm all up and running and she runs a treat. Actually starts up and runs pretty quick compared to what I remember.

Just need to get original monitor, keyboard and mouse. These things are soooo hard to find now though 🙁

Also PCi graphics cards from that era are seriously expensive.
Need to start stocking up on a couple for the future!

Just got a Club 30 too with the Cyrix CPU and a whopping 30MB RAM.
It seems that the original PB W98 is still on but not stock anymore.
Does someone have an ISO of the master CD's and the bootfloppy?
I also want to make it like it was sold with all the programs.

Murugan wrote on 2020-12-15, 16:01:

Just got a Club 30 too with the Cyrix CPU and a whopping 30MB RAM. It seems that the original PB W98 is still on but not stock […]
Show full quote

Just got a Club 30 too with the Cyrix CPU and a whopping 30MB RAM.
It seems that the original PB W98 is still on but not stock anymore.
Does someone have an ISO of the master CD's and the bootfloppy?
I also want to make it like it was sold with all the programs.

I too have just sourced a Club 30. Richy85 are you able to post a link to an image of those master CDs and the floppy?

Richy85 wrote on 2020-08-19, 15:14:

Hm. I'm pretty sure I never had a floppy for my Club 30 but perhaps I'm wrong as I can definitely remember having to replace the […]
Show full quote

Hm.
I'm pretty sure I never had a floppy for my Club 30 but perhaps I'm wrong as I can definitely remember having to replace the hard drive on that machine so would have had to have some sort of floppy if restoring onto a blank HDD... Maybe I created a tattoo floppy myself but unlikely if my HDD was dead.
Tbh, It's well over 20 years ago now so my memory could be wrong.
Bit annoying that I threw all my floppy disks out years ago... 🙁

So the # of my CD's are 6733870101.
Here's a pic.

Help needed for a new Packard Bell Club 30 / 40 owner.
Hi all, I know this is an old topic, but does @Richy85 (if still active), or anyone else know if he made these Master CDs available as ISOs anywhere? If so I'd be extremely grateful if someone can help me obtain them, or point me in the right direction please.

I've recently bought / restored a Packard Bell Club 40 (PB850/FR500 Hercules) system, which AFAIK, aside from including a Modem is identical to the Packard Bell Club 30. Like @Richy85, I'd love to install the original software/OS setup, to get the full PB experience.

Thanks to his YouTube video, this topic & Passion-PB, I've been able to restore the HS / BIOS Tattoo, but need the correct Master CDs, and they're not on Archive.org.

This is the highlights sticker (I guess this was as much a benefit to the sales staff to give them prompts, as much as it was in highlighting the value to consumers) which lists the main specifications & software bundle, which in the the installation process on these Club machines I believe I've read on here somewhere is referred to as the 98 Club College software bundle?

Packard Bell Club 40 Case Sticker