OT: A 'help my computer died for Christmas' Question

Stork

So here I am at work, on Saturday, just to get an internet fix...how sad!

In case anyone has any ideas (I'm going to try with some local gurus on Monday, if they aren't all on vacation of course)...I am getting an Invalid Disc error--please insert Boot disc into drive A or words to that effect.

Wouldn't be a problem except my A drive (floppy) died about 6 months ago, my D drive (DVD/CD) died about 12 months ago, and my only external drive is a Very Old HP CD writer. (I have one of those ridiculous 'all-in-one' Gateways, small footprint without a box, but once a part dies you are hosed). At this point I don't have a CD boot disc, for Windows ME no less.

What is the liklihood that someone intelligent will be able to boot that ancient bad girl up? All I really want off of there is a copy of my AOL favorites, a few Word documents I could really live without, and the last 2 months of our photos--that is the one that hurts, my husband backs up the pictures about every 3 months fortunately, but there are a few newer ones it would be nice to get.

Obviously my 3+ year old computer is in dire need of replacing, so I am either going to the local exchange to get a new one of whatever they have, or I may just order a Dell and wait forever....

On the holiday plus side, my husband snuck into my datebook and lifted a copy of my Japanese coin wish list. He found a little coin shop in Tokyo, with three train transfers involved (1 1/2 hours each way), and bought a nice group of Japanese commemeratives. He then stuck them in a box labeled 'ebay 1996 mint set -- Poland' (which I thought would have been cool too) just to fool me. Plus this is on top of the Proof half ounce Britannia he got me on ebay! It isn't so much WHAT he got me (all of which are extremely nice) but the great lengths he went to do so--I am a lucky person! Add in that my family is healthy, fed, clothed, housed and was able to have a nice holiday, the computer issue seems pretty trivial... but I hope it can be revived at least for a little while, I miss being able to log on at 05:00 when everyone else is asleep and I get to goof off a little!


Cathy

Compa

Assuming the disk isn't totally hosed ... buy your new computer, remove the hard drive from your old one and hook it up into the new machine as your or E: drive. Cables should already be there for doing it. At most you might need to move some jumpers on the back of the hard drive to change it from 'master' to 'slave'. No need to actually mount it if you just want to transfer the files.

You should then be able to just copy the files you need.

lordmarcovan

I can sympathize. My laptop has just died. It's resurrectable, but all of my coin dealer data is on there- labels, everything.

hoardmonster

I think someone who really knows what they're doing should be able to recover the files you want off that drive. Good luck with it.

NJMark1

I can understad your problem. Some good advice offered by responders. Oh yea I just bought a dell and I had it in a week.

Mark

1jester

Happy Holidays, Cathy! It's great that you and your family are doing well. Sorry about your computer blues but the info on the hard drive can most likely be salvaged. Good luck!