[BC] Computer question

[Glen Kippel]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 8:11 AM, <Xmitters at aol.com> wrote:

>
> Couple things come to mind; Maybe you could put the Hard Drive (HD) from
> the
> failed MoBoard in the scrounged computer, then boot in safe mode. That will
> at
> least tell you that your files are okay. Second and most effective
> probably,
> put the drive with all your files on it into another computer, but install
> it
> as your second drive. Boot the scrounged computer as normal, but now it
> will
> have its original O/S and a second HD (the one out of the bad MoBoard).
>
> Then use your favorite backup (thumb drive, CDR, etc.) and extract your
> files
> off that original HD. Then copy them back to where you want them to live
> permanently.
>
> How's that idea sound?
>
> ------------------
>

Now that sounds like it might work.  I have an 80 GB USB drive that I can
plug in,  The original drive on the machine has a terminal death rattle, but
it will boot.  If I can read the drive I want by assigning it to a slave at
E:, I (hopefully) could copy the data to the external drive at F:, then
format E:, re-load Windows (in this case, Win 2000), and then copy my
program files back on from the external drive.  I would also need to
partition the drive and map the virtual drives to the network.

This stuff is all new to me, as I normally set up a network and it works and
I leave it alone.  I've never had to mess around with this ____ before,
especially building computers out of cannibalized parts.  It's on-the-job
training by trial and error -- mostly error.  And it sucks.