Vanity - Question about my now deceased home computer

02.17.09 | Perdogg

[Perdogg]

I download some music this morning and when I removed my USB connector to my Sony MP3 player my computer went dead. I tried a hard boot, but the computer is not booting up.

I am assuming that "she's dead, jim", right? The fan won't start and my zip drive has conniption fits when I start try to start her up. My CD rom won't open either.

Is there any way I can recover the contents of my hard drive? How do I dispose of the computer and get rid of the personal information.

Is this a good computer?

[tgusa]

It’s almost a theological question, I guess. My Latitude D630 while having 4 GB RAM, plenty of HD space, is a bit short in processor speed so maybe that’s my particular problem. Thanks -

[listenhillary]

If you turn off much of the Vista nanny crud, it works OK with 1 GB of memory.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

If the PC is dead...and I mean once you've determined that the motherboard is fried or replacing the power supply isn't your cup of tea...remove the hard drive and simply install it as a slave unit in a new PC. Make sure this new PC will accept an IDE drive if your old one is IDE and not SATA, of course.

That's how I usually do it to save data, once it is determined that the hard drive is NOT the part causing the failure.

[mad_as_he$$]

Did you knock the power cord out of the supply?

[sarasota]

I bought my Mac in 2000 and it’s still going strong (with a few upgrades).

[2nd amendment mama]

Bookmark for later

[hiredhand]

Whatever you do, don't do anything "disruptive" to the hard drive in the dead computer. It's almost certainly recoverable. From the sounds of it, I'm going to guess that the PC's hardware suffered some sort of failure, possibly power supply related. There are several places now that offer a service whereby they will take the contents of a hard drive such as the one in your dead computer and copy it to DVD-ROM media. Staples is one such place, and possibly Office Max and Best Buy.

What DW said about the master/slave thing is true generally.

[My hearts in London - Everett]

"Is this a good computer?"

I'll let you know. I just bought one myself. (Haven't gotten it yet.) The performance reviews I read on various sites were pretty good.

[LuxMaker]

I agree with everyone here who said it is the power supply. They take about 15 minutes to change out. Also, like others have said, try blowing the dust out of the machine first. Also another you can try, is with the power unplugged switch the red switch on the back of the power supply and then switch it back. This is an indented switch that affects power regulation for other countries power supply. I have gotten power supplies working this way, but it is usually inevitable to have to replace them not too long afterwards.

Below is pic with red switch on back:

[AppyPappy]

They really need to disconnect the USB port from the motherboard before replacing anything. It sounds like a short.

[LuxMaker]

Usually they are integrated into the motherboard which would mean replacing the whole motherboard. I doubt the 7 year old motherboard or older is still even available for replacement.

[AppyPappy]

No. It was a front USB port rather than a rear USB port. They are connected via wire to the motherboard.

[Perdogg]

thanks!