OT computer issue

I still have 7 or 8 XP machines running here. I imagine they are all close to 10 years old except for the two dual core W/7 machines I bought and put XP on

Thanks for the info. I'll stop short of MB repairs - probably buy another tower and plug in my hard drive to retreive data. Similar towers are almost free these days .. John T.

Thanks for the reply - I did take a look at things on the MB but not with a magnifier or anything. Don't plan on MB repairs anyway. A power supply swap is about my limit, I suspect. Replacement towers are quite cheap these days. John T.

The current off lease machines will be W/7 and can be had for $40 and up but a 3gz dual core with a decent amount of RAM and a big drive are more like $100 I would not buy a lap top unless I wanted it to be portable or unless it was used as a server or something where being a one piece is handy. I usually want a separate keyboard and display for a desk top machine. I carry a BT mouse and a cable that will hook my laptop to the hotel TV when I travel. Laptops are miserable if you ever have to fix it. The parts are all proprietary and they are a pain in the ass to take apart. Desk tops tend to be off the shelf parts.

I'll probably be forced to go that route - used or re-furb tower -

- to retreive my hard drive data and to have a second computer. - are the hard drive cables likely to be the same ? I already have a laptop - it's my main everyday computer John T.

If you just want to retrieve data and not replace the PC, you can buy powered adapters that will connect to the drive and give you a USB connection.

I agree on the desktop versus notebook. Unless you need the portability, you get more bang for the buck with a desktop and service or upgrading is easy. Same thing with those sleek Apple iMacs. You pay a premium and everything is packed into the display. Maybe you can take it apart to DIY repair, but I wouldn't count on it. And if you need portability, then a tablet is a possible solution too.

I had a hard drive give warnings of impending failure on my mini-tower. I opted to replace it with a flash drive. Took just a few minutes and I had it in. I doubt you could do that with one of those iMac things or a notebook. It's now super fast, 20 secs to boot and I'm happy.

| I'll probably be forced to go that route - used or re-furb tower - | - to retreive my hard drive data and to have a second computer. | - are the hard drive cables likely to be the same ?

Your old one is probably IDE, a long plug with about 40 holes. New ones are are SATA, which has a small plug and a slightly L-shaped connection. You can buy adaptors and enclosures to adapt IDE to USB.

I have to disagree , I find laptops quite easy to work on . Some of parts ARE proprietary , but not terribly hard to find . Most of my experience has been with older Toshiba Satellites and one Dell . I've used the directions found with a web search , one tip that really helps is to use egg cartons for the small screws/parts - and number each cell with the step number of the directions .

Thanks guys - I didn't know that they were so available & inexpensive. John T.

SATA was pretty common 10 years ago . This desktop (ASUS M2A-VM MOBO) was built 13 years ago , has 4 SATA and 2 IDE ports (for a total of 4 IDE devices) .

You probably don't know that USB thumb flash drives are so cheap you can get a 32GB one for $7 at Kmart. You could probably put everything from that HD that you need onto one of those. I hadn't bought one in years and was pleasantly surprised to find that I got a 16GB one in Jan for $7. Now you get 32.

If the hardware is similar enough that the drivers are easy to fix, you can just plug the drive in and boot from it on an XP system. MS has pretty much given up on all of that "your hardware changed" stuff. You just log on and it says "OK". I just did it the other day on one of my HP/Compaq systems that took a crap. I had another similar vintage HP and it sailed right through.

Yup

I would have to disagree, the keyboard and display (and other) cable connec tors are very delicate and have a limited number of cycles to work properly . Can the average person do it, maybe if you watch a youtube of it a few ti mes. I would suspect you a more bragging than recommending...it's not for t he average PC nerd.

These days I would say people should image their new C: to one of those sticks as soon as they get it all loaded up and running good. Then you can get back there pretty fast if you lose a drive or get some ugly virus. Get in a habit of keeping all your data (everything that is not "installed") on a D: drive and that is very easy to copy off and copy back. Save C: for the software that is hard to restore without an image. I have lots of copies of my D: drives, going back years.

Spitballing here. . .

Disconnect the power and data cables from the hard drive. Try a start and you should, if it's the drive, see "No Boot Device" or somesuch. Get into the BIOS and change the boot order to CD-ROM as #1 and reboot with your Windows XP drive in the CD-ROM/DVD and see what happens.

If you get it up and running that way, your hard drive may NOT be fried, but the MBR on the drive (Master Boot Record) is fried.

Had a similar situation earlier this year. Good, functioning box with XP Pro running without any issues. Suddenly one day it would not boot. Okay, s*it happens and I just happened to have the identical model computer sitting on a storage shelf, sans drive. Lemme just put this hard drive from the machine that crapped out in the spare computer and I'll be up and running. Nope, same symptoms with the "spare" computer and that drive as what you're telling us. Funniest thing was, I could plant that hard drive in an external drive case and access it and pull files, etc. off it without any problem, but it WOULD NOT BOOT until I reformatted it and reinstalled Windows. Go figure.

Flip side: If you happen to have another working drive laying around with XP on it, swap out the drives and see what happens. If it boots up you'll have a bunch of whining and crying since you don't have the appropriate (at least not all of them) drivers but you should see it come up. If it does, then you have MBR (or other) problems with the other hard drive.

You have to jumper 15 and 16 or nothing will happen and then test the various pins on the connectors.

Like it says, make sure the whole basket of snakes is unplugged. I had one box that wouldn't boot because a faulty floppy drive was pulling the supply down. That was an easy fix -- who needs a floppy?