My five-year-old hard drive seemed to be unstable, so I replaced it with a new drive. I was unable to connect the original drive as either an external drive or as a slave drive, so I took the PC to the shop. They were also unable to install the original drive as an external or an internal slave, so they put it into another machine and booted it as the master. They moved the files from it into a folder called Backup, and put that file on the new drive.
The shop also installed Win98 on my new drive. Free Cell is not in the accessories for some reason, but it is in the Backup folder. When I try to run it, I get a message that cards.DLL is not available. This file does exist in the Backup folder.
On a minor additional note, if a malfunctioning drive is less than three years old, there’s an excellent chance it’s still under manufacturer’s warranty. Dig out the drive, make a note of its model and serial numbers, as well as manufacturing date, then use another computer to access the manufacturer’s website. Under “Support” or “Warranty Services” or whatnot, you should find the procedure to get an “RMA Number”. This essentially registers your drive with the company. Then ship the drive to the company with your RMA number clearly marked. If all goes well (and in my experience, it always has), the manufacturer will replace your drive with one of equal or greater size and the only cost to you is the initial shipping.
Of course, whatever data you had on the drive will be permanently lost, so this comes only after you’ve made all reasonable attempts at recovery.
Try to re-install:
Go to Start, then Settings.
Go to control panel, then double click Add/Remove Programs.
Go to the windows setup tab.
Double click on accesories, then uncheck Games. Press ok, then restart your computer.
Insert your windows disk and then redo the first step, except this time, CHECK games. Click ok.
See if that re-installs it.
Another idea:
Do a ctrl/alt/del and end task on everything but systray and explorer. Try running the game again.
I hit submit too quickly. Sorry about that.
The reason I fear you’re not able to just move the file, is that I suspect the game wasn’t properly installed to begin with.
Uninstalling and then re-installing is worth a shot.
