Computer help

SOS....SOS....SOS...

As a result of the recent forced removal of our office goods we now have a new set of pc's etc but of course all the info has gone. However, strangely they walked past a cpu Id just taken out of the system to upgrade, this has some useful info on the HDD. Prob, the computer isnt wired up inside and I dont have a foggiest what goes where so; is there any way I can access that HDD via my laptop?????? It is a simple pc BTW, a hdd, floppy and cd writer so maybe I could get it together again?

 

Best solution would probably be to get a usb enclosure for the hard drive so you can connect it to your laptop. I got a couple of these recently for a similar reason.

I cannot recommend Ebuyer though as I found their delivery and customer services to be very poor. You should be able to get similar enclosures from most computer shops and also Maplin.

They seem to work fine. I wasn't able to read some of my disks though but I think that was due to the filesystem not being a windows one, I cannot remember what I used them for.

Reconnecting everything inside the PC would be an alternative but it sounds odd that everything would have been disconnected. You may find trying this has other problems such as some parts being faulty/removed.

 

Morgan is also a great place to get them, I only have in shop experiences with them but their staff are very helpful despite the fact they need to learn to smile .

Maplin might be a bit pricey. I also agree to avoid Ebuyer, I have lost count of the amount of people who have bought dodgy power supplies from them. Yes I know a £5 PSU is not going to much so why sell them?

 

The cheapest usb enclosures I could find were from whatever it is Time is now called. Naturally they're awful quality but they do work fine. I think they're called 'The Computer Shop' or something along those lines. They were about £20 each for USB2 enclosures. They're for the larger 5.5" or whatever it is bays (CD Rom etc.) but HDD use the same IDE interface so you just use different mounting holes in the base of the caddy.

EDIT: make sure you get the right interface though, SATA is for the newer disks, IDE is the older ones. IDE is a big long ribbon cable (there will be loads of pins on the back of the disk, some jumpers then the power interface), if its SATA it uses much smaller cables.

 

SOS SOS SOS

My dad came back with an 'ICY BOX' caddy, he took the HDD so we know its okay. Prob is the instructions are usless, the website hopeless and Scan too busy. It plugs in, makes the beeping sound etc but thats it! What the hell do I do??

 

Ive done it, Im da man

 

The computer shop went bust a couple of months back along with Time and Tiny.

 

Oh ok. I'm sure they'll reappear under another name like they always seem to though. Bastards.

 

I am not too sure more than 1000 people lost their jobs in the Burnley area becuase of it. It was probably the second biggest company to go under this year after Rover.

I feel sorry for PC engineers they will go out of business now trying to fix all the crappy Time laptops. On second thoughts they still have Packard Bell's to fix :