Computer Repair n Tips

This should help...

It covers all the main areas... Data transfer, portability, human error, etc

If none of that works, just try hitting the round twirly thing. The old techniques are the best

__________________
Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Ooh ooh, I have a question!
I want to put an old 4gig harddrive, (as a secondary drive) previously the bootable drive, loaded with windows 98, into a new machine running Windows XP Home Ed. Can I read the old 4 gig drive? and will it be able to access the old files, games, programs in the old drive? Well, it isn't for me, really. It is for my nefew. He hates to give up his old windows 98 stuff. I wonder if XP is smart enough to 'see' the windows 98 programs, games and such?

What say you, PC guru?

__________________
Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Seeing the drive and accessings files should be done easy enough. Getting the programs to run will probably not work in most cases.
You could try to have a duel boot set up to where you choose which hard drive to boot from, drivers may be an issue though, but usually there are ways around this.. Another choice would be to do an upgrade on that hard drive, if it has enough room, to XP. If you have any detailed question you can PM me, or see what others on here have to say. In most cases however trying to run a program on a slave drive will not work. Pictures, music, documents, nonexe files should all be okay.

__________________

“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

Thanks for the answer, 7th. The idea of an upgrade on the harddrive itself was considered but it just does not have enough room. Anyway, I thought there would be driver issues with an upgrade too, since this is an old computer too with a Pentium II processor and 120mb of RAM. Time to upgrade the system, wouldn't you say? The dual boot system sounds like an idea. Is it difficult to create?

I am trying to ween my nephew off the old Windows 98 O/S.

In theory no, you have two ways to do this: create a drive with two partitions and copy the 98 partition to it, or just use the old drive itself although a 4gb drive will run very slow in most cases. If you use old hard drive it self you will probably have to change boot order in bios to boot from drive needed, or in some cases there is a "F key" usually f12 or f10, that allows for quick boot choice. If you partition a new drive and all things work as they should will get get an option for 98 or Xp during the boot. I have a lot of customers just unwilling to give up their old programs and such so I understand the desire if not the need. If it was me though I would try to do my best to move on and forget the old stuff. But that is just me and everyone is different. It is amazing how much money some of my customers spend to keep their old systems up and running in today's world. Oh well, least I get paid by the hour . My service here on MOFO is free though to anyone that is a member. Pm me anytime for detailed instructions on anything. I know there are a lot of computer hacks out there (this is a compliment btw) who have shortcuts and better ways to do things than I can suggest. Good luck.







P.S. Hold your breath for Vista if you can, it looks to be the best OS I have seen in ...well ever. I have the Beta and it is solid from what I see. You will need a lot of memory to run it effectively, but oh my what a great pay off you will get.

Thanks for the additional info. Let's see what we can do for him.
I sure understand about people not wanting to let go. Sometimes that learning curve is too steep for some to climb!

I have not heard too much about Vista. I will have to look into that.
Thanks again. I am sure I will tap at your 'door' again.

Thanks 7thson and sorry it took me so long to get back to this… I feel a bit like Forrest Gump's feather at times lately…

Anyway, I checked a few of the locals and the ones I know are still closed due to damage from wind or water… but last week our tech at work finally showed back up and I talked to him for a bit and he is letting me borrow a Compaq (I know, you said to avoid them) for a few days to see if I like it or not…

It's a Compaq 3500+; AMD Athlon(™) 64 Processor, 1.0 GB memory; 200 GB hard drive; 219 GHz… all of which is always very confusing to me…

__________________

200GB!!

Just think how many kitten pics you could fit on that!!

I really do not like Compaq, but you do have good spec's there. The biggest thing I would be leary of is the motherboard. If you have the model number, should be on the front of the machine somewhere, then I could tell you a little more about it. Of course price is always an issue and if you can get a good deal on this then go for it. A custom built machine with those spec's and a 3 year warranty would run around $600 - $700 new in my area. Course if you are mainly just using it for the internet it is a bit overkill and will do the job just fine. Let me know how it goes.


Edit:
Actually now that I look closer at the specs you posted I think you have my machine. (Minus the compaq lable of course ) I have an AMD 64 3500 Winchester core CPU, a 200 gb hard drive, and 1.5 Gbs of memory. Copy cat!

Oh make sure to see what kind of video card you have. If you are not doing any gaming it wont matter much, but you at least want to make sure you have at least a 128 card.

The only number I see on the front that might be a model number is: SR1750NX

Is your 600-700 dollar range just for the pc? He offered me a package deal for around $500.

Calling all computer boffins, calling all computer boffins, THIS IS BLIB. Help??

I know we have some super computer techy geek geeks (I say it with love ) on this site, so the time has come when i desperatly need your help. Would be mega appreciated. I know Seven and Oggy are good for it, anyone else?

Finally after several long months, ive pulled my wallet together and im finally forking out the squillions of dosh for a new computer. Iv'e been using Windows since my computer birth, so i thought this time, id go crazy and get a mac. Want a different operating system, and something quite small as my desk is minature. Plus theyre awful purty. Anywhoo, one of the other reasons is that theyre pretty good for creative gubbins. Such as photo/film editing being the main gub as i plan to start up my photography again.

So, basically i need some info. I know ive asked this before but its been lost in my memory, but who here has a MAC or did have and decided to dump it? and Why?

Heres what im looking into buying within the next week or so if all goes well and i finally make the decision....

The 20", 2 GHz Intel Core Duo iMac.

PURTY!

For a hefty, £1,229.00 (God bless interest free finance)

Comes with:
•20-inch widescreen LCD with 1680x1050 resolution

•2.0GHz Intel Core Duo processor with 2MB shared L2 cache

•512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300)

•250GB Serial ATA hard drive

•Slot-load 8x double-layer SuperDrive

•ATI Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory

•Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0

And the software:
•Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger

•iLife ’06

•iWork ’06 30-day trial

•Front Row

•Photo Booth

•Big Bang Board Games

•Comic Life

•OmniOutliner

So how does all this sound? I have some questions that would ease my mind and wallet...

Would you guys say its worth the money?

Would i be better off getting the slightly older and cheaper G5 superdrive thingy one?

Is it very difficult/expensive to add new software or drives (Like CD ROM drives etc) to the computer if i need them at a later date?

Ive got broadband at my house (Not sure what you guys call it in the states but its your basic high speed internet connection), will the Mac be able to use it or will i need to buy some extra stuff for that?

Are they reliable? I know ive got a years warranty at elast and from how they treat my iPod i know these guys are good for that.

Is the graphics card good enough to play up to date games that are being released?

and is there anything else i should know? This is a big investment for me as im normally used to living the tramps life, so i just want to make sure im not making a mistake.

Anyway, hope you wonderful human beings can help....

__________________
Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Macs are never worth the money, take this guys advice: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...63641017&q=mac

I 100% recommend to get windows. For that price you can get a very nice Athalon or Intel P4 dual core, with a SLI mobo with a 7800GT, or ATi.

__________________
"No, we don't have any needles here... Just a big f*cking gun"

Little vague my friend, little vague.

Plus i think that man may have more issues than just his computer.

Lol. Yeah I just kinda put that in there because its funny, but some of it is true, depends what your looking for in a computer.

I can say this, if your gaming, which I doubt you are.. This is bad for a few reasons.

- not enough RAM, 512mb does not cut it, for anything really.
-duar core is a bad idea, you want to focus all of your processor speed on the one thing, not two at a time.
-LCD bad idea, won't be able to play at max, you need a tube monitor.
-mac, terrible game selection :P

If its for business or personal use, looks good, never really experminted much with a mac, but for this reason I hear they are fair. But one problem still. RAM, you definitly need more, 512mb will not cut it, bottleneck.

I thought most games for the PC give you a choice of either installing it for Mac or Windows?

And as for the RAM, will this cause problems for more things than just gaming??

And another Q, can you still use MSN messenger on a mac? I was told that you can...

Yes you can...and it sure looks purdy. All the programs seem to look more pleasing to the eye. But then again, this shouldnt be the sole reason for buying a mac product unless you are shallow like myself.

I bought a 14 inch i-book 7 months ago and for me it was worth the money. Unlike our windows computer which crashes every few months...I have had no problems with my laptop.

*pets i-book

If you want to spoil yourself and try something new, then go for it...also apparently they do not depreciate in value as rapidly as your standard pc. Also, if you are not pleased with it, just send it back before the trial period is up...give it a go...it can't hurt, can it?

(I seriously doubt i am qualified enough to comment here).

__________________

Yes, it is. That is a very sturdy system. The only thing I can say you should upgrade is the RAM. Get at least a gig and your system will handle anything to come for the next few years. RAM will make the most noticeable difference as to the longevity of a system.

Nope

I've never owned an iMac, but if you wanted to add any new drives you could easily by external deals, which are relatively cheap.

No problems there, will work fine.

Macs are incredibly reliable, more so than PCs

Yes, it definitely is, but you won't be pushing any games to their graphical limits.

You're getting one of the new generations of Macs, which uses the new Intel chipset, which is an architecture that can support Windows. Just last week someone won a proof of concept with the ability of dual booting Windows onto a Macintosh. This means you could have the option of booting the system into OSX (Mac's operating system) or XP.

You have to be somewhat tech savy to do so, but it is a possiblity. And in the weeks to come I'm sure you can expect some more user-friendly work arounds for it.

No games give that option anymore. Back in the day, when games took less space and were multi-platformed that was possible. Now you'll have to buy a Mac version of a game and it is no secret that not nearly as many games get ported to the Macintosh these days.

Your 512mb of RAM will be enough for your computer to function perfectly fine. You'll not notice any problems unless you're doing some intensive editing work (like in Final Cut or Photoshop). However, like I said above, I'd recommend upgrading to at least a gig, your comp will have much more staying power as more resource angry applications come out.

I'm sure you can use MSN on a mac, and if not MSN's direct client I'm sure someone has made a client that lets you connect to MSN's services.

Good luck.

__________________
Horror's Not Dead
Latest Movie Review(s): Too lazy to keep this up to date. New reviews every week.

The specs are great with the exception of the ram as mentioned by others. Get at least 1 gig more is possible. The biggest thing you have to consider is the learning curve. If you are willing to teach yourself a new OS then there is nothing bad to say against a MAC. I myself have never owned one, but I do work on them and see why those who swear by them do so. I am waiting to see how Vista 64 bit pans out, if it bombs or does not do much for me I will probably go to the Mac side. Stability is amazing and the only thing I like better than Macs in that area is Linux, but thats another story.

I've had to work with Macs at the office since the late 1980s. PLEH. I left a job last month where I had a brand-new G5. My reaction? I'd rather sell it and buy four PCs.

I just upgraded to a nice, inexpensive ($450) Compaq desktop. Lovely machine for the money (monitor included, although I didn't need it), with ATI Radeon Xpress 256MB graphics card (for my Myst games, don'tcha know), a 9-in-1 card reader, 7 USB ports, DVD burner with LightScribe, etc. etc. blah blah. We upgraded from the 512MB RAM to 1GB (for gaming, again). For the price, I'm tickled pink with it. No one seems to notice Compaqs much, but we've owned two desktops, two laptops, and a secondhand old Compaq laptop (10 years old and still in use, now in Canada) and have been impressed with all of them ... ESPECIALLY because they're so CHEAP.

If you GAVE me a Mac, I'd sell it and buy a handful of comparable PCs. I'm sorry, but I have no use for a Mac. Mac owners get SO excited if they can find games and such for their Macs. Meanwhile, as a PC owner, I can get more software than I could ever want, some freeware. "Pretty" just doesn't cut it for me with a machine that's supposed to be functional.

My bosses scream and yell about how "stable" the Macs are, but I'm sorry, they crashed as often as our home network machines do (actually, now that we're all XP, the Macs crash more!). I can't see any reason to spend 2 or 3 times the money for a Mac unless you're really into high concept design so much that you don't care about cost.

I do.

Besides, my Compaq is pretty. And paid for. With Christmas money. In cash.

__________________
Linda's Author Website
Linda's Amazon Author page

Not necessarily. I have a whole handful of games here (mostly adventure games, not FPS) that are Mac/Windows hybrids. The Myst series was always pretty good about that ... except that, amazingly enough, they never came out with a Mac version of their "different" game, URU.

I guess it depends on the game....