And another sick computer

[Miggimeggi]

I have rather messed up my old computer and not bothered to do much about it because I also have another, much newer one.Unfortunately, there is some stuff on the old one that we occasionally want and as the OS is Windows '98 we have not been able to transfer over.  A couple of months ago I wanted to connect the old one to the internet and was too lazy to move the great lump of a monitor over so just connected the box to the new LCD monitor.  Not only did it refuse to work but now the old one doesn't work either.  Obviously the poor old box is totally confused and has shut its eyes and pulled the blankets over its head.  Does anybody know if there is anything we can do other than dump it, pity because it is still quite serviceable - just a bit slow, and has some good games on it as well as my favourite Smart Suite which completely freaks out XP .   I expect it just needs to be soothed a bit and told what monitor it has,  trouble is, whatever is done would have to be totally blind.  Spoke to the IT dept. at my nearest large store but they wanted close to E100 just to look at it and I am not sure it is worth that, let alone the actual cost of repair which comes on top.

Anne

[ChezShells]

Hi

Does it boot up, can you hear the fan. Maybe the graphics card has come loose or has decided to call it a day.

You could always put the hard drive into your new one as a secondary drive and boot from that drive from the boot menu.

I wouldnt get rid, if your not far from us I can have a look at it for you.

[Gyn_Paul]

I've done that everytime I changed computers: strap the old hard drive into the spare slot, tell the bios it has a second drive (autoseek these days so don't need to), copy what I need from old drive to new, take old drive out, put cover on, and away you go.

If you buy a new HD there is usually a disc with it containing a programme to make a miror of you existing disk on the new one, but that's not exactly a help here, is it?

p

[Miggimeggi]

Thanks both of you.  Had not thought of adding the hard drive to our newer computer - good idea, will try that. 

Lee, it does boot up, I can hear the fan and the usual lights on the box do the usual things.  Right now it is in the barn in a box but I will get her out and see if the graphics crd is in place.   I am afraid that we are rather far from you, probably 3 or 4 hours but thanks for the thought.

Anne