Check out my journey of restoring my Packard Bell Multimedia D135 computer. It was a doozy. If you too are attempting to restore a Packard Bell computer, I have an Ultimate Guide on Archive.org. The restore media is for the D135, but may work on other variants such as the D131 and D134 as these are very similar. If you don’t have the D135 model, these instructions should work for most Packard Bell machines from this era, though you may have to find the correct restore media for your computer.
Behold my childhood computer, the Packard Bell Multimedia D135. Well, not the exact one I had in 1997, but it is the same model. The Packard Bell Multimedia D135 was my first home computer. It was my big Christmas gift in 1997. It had a Pentium 133 Mhz with MMX, 16MB of Ram, 1.2GB Hard Drive, 28.8k Modem, Aztech Sound Card, and 1MB shared video memory. This computer is responsible for sending me down the path to becoming a computer hobbyist and eventually a computer technician. Before then the only computers I used were at school and I didn’t know much about using them. At school we had Macintosh computers and they were usually used for educational games like number munchers. That and the occasional dot matrix printer designs. I still remember the sweet sound and satisfying feeling of ripping off those edges.
I didn’t have a lot of time with my original Packard Bell computer. A friend of mine at school had convinced me that it was easy to open and tinker with. So naturally I listened to this kids sound suggestion and took the entire thing apart. To be fair, he was not wrong and it was pretty easy to understand. After removing all the parts, cpu, ram, hard drive, and sound card and placing them back in place, the computer would not longer post. I messed with it for months before eventually giving up and figuring I broke it. Looking back now, I’m sure I placed the EDO memory in backwards or didn’t seat it properly.
During the time the computer was working, I had a blast. Many days spent playing Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, Terminal Velocity, War Craft II, and smaller games like Ski Free, Rattler Race, and Rodents Revenge. I still remember getting dial up internet for the first time. Here in Nashville there was a service called, BellSouth Internet. We had to order the CD over the phone. When the CD arrived, it came in a sleeve and was orange with black print on it. Bellsouth used Netscape Navigator as the default browser. Most people think of Internet Explorer as the default browser, but for me it was Netscape. I’m still trying to find this CD on eBay.
I miss the sound of that 28.8k Dial Up modem. The internet was somewhere you went and explored. I remember going into chat rooms, searching for game demos, visiting GeoCities pages, and so much more. Of course I can’t leave out searching on AltaVista, the most popular search engine at the time. All of that was done before a call came in and killed the connection or someone picked up the phone to the sound of the screeching beeps and boops followed by a yell for me to get off the internet so they can make a call. I’ve been hoping to revisit the D135 and recapture something close to that feeling for a long time now.
Finally, I was able to get my hands on one. The issue is, Packard Bell machines are notoriously tough to restore to factory settings. The first task is finding the correct restore media. You may get lucky and run across the exact Master CD that you need on Archive.org or a YouTube video. Most of the time, it’s a crap shoot. The problem is that the restore media does not have obvious labels like other restore CDs like those from HP, Dell, and even eMachines. These are identified by a set of numbers such as, 170586-2 or 170991. Both of these I found work with the D135. But there are a lot of restore media files out there and most don’t identify what computer they are for. Then, there’s the issue of having the original hardware.
You see, Packard Bell Master CD’s check for original hard drives and CD drives. The problem with this is that these computers are quite old and to find one with original Hard Drives and working CD-ROM drives is nearly impossible depending on the model. The Hard Drives have what’s referred to as, “Format Numbers”. Luckily the Vintage Packard Bell Wiki has a lot of these listed, though not all. The Vintage Packard Bell Wiki is a great resource for finding specifications and general info. Sometimes they even have the Master CD number for some models. Anywho, the Format Numbers can be used on after market drives, should you find the Format Number for your machine. 556065 is the Format Number for the D135, for those of you who need it. The original CD-ROM drive is a little tougher. That requires modifying the Packard Bell Boot Floppy disk with universal CD-ROM drivers. The Master CD will also check after the Boot Disk check. So that’s two different obstacles. The easiest is using a Windows 95/98 boot disk.
Thanks for reading. Be sure to check out my video Building My Retro Dream Machine where I use mostly new old stock parts including an Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro with external sound module. Also be sure to visit and subscribe to the YouTube Channel, Past Present Show for more.
