I know ....i'm a DORK!!!!!

mxfun

mxfun

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Sean Logie
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Right ... the wife and i were having a clear out in the attic tonight, and i came across our old computer (i thought we threw it out),anyways ,i remembered that there was a problem with the hard drive .What i'd like some info on is:,can i just take out the old drive and install the new drive ,plug it in and away i go,or is there more to it than that?: Told you i'm a dork :D (my eldest would like the computer for his room,for his bebo and surfing ).Last question,i'll need the computer to have wireless broadband,i have an idea but i'm not sure what i need for that .I believe a Dongal is involved,or am i wide of the mark....Hope this makes sense.:)
 
How old is the PC? More than likely you'll need to buy a hard drive that has an IDE connection. Just make sure you specify that term for a purchase and you'll be OK. It'll be a straight swap but you'll need to do a fresh install of everything.

A wireless network card is pretty cheap, as well. Again, this would be plug and play. You may have to install the drivers before the physical install but the manual will explain it all.
 
Are you sure it is actually the hard drive that's dead? If so, then a new drive, reinstall the operating system and applications will do the trick.

As for wireless broadband, I take it you have a wireless router/modem (the bit that plugs into the phone line)? If so, then you'll need a wireless adaptor on the machine, either a wireless card that fits in one of the PCI slots inside, or a USB wireless dongle that, as its name suggests, plugs into a USB port - does the PC have USB?
 
The comp's about 3 yrs old ,probably old hat know ,yeh it has USB ports ,also have a wireless modem.. Thank for the input :thumbs:
 
Personally, I'd used a PCI wireless card rather than a USB dongle - something like this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/45602 - as USB devices can be a pain, especially on an old PC (although 3 years isn't that old).
 
mxfun said:
Right ... the wife and i were having a clear out in the attic tonight, and i came across our old computer (i thought we threw it out),anyways ,i remembered that there was a problem with the hard drive .What i'd like some info on is:,can i just take out the old drive and install the new drive ,plug it in and away i go,or is there more to it than that?: Told you i'm a dork :D (my eldest would like the computer for his room,for his bebo and surfing ).Last question,i'll need the computer to have wireless broadband,i have an idea but i'm not sure what i need for that .I believe a Dongal is involved,or am i wide of the mark....Hope this makes sense.:)
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if the computer is 3 years old then the hard drive will have the older parallel ATA (PATA) rather than the modern serial ATA (SATA) interface, so make sure you buy the right one. you'll also need to reinstall the original operating system if you've still got the disk and serial number. if they've gone awol then you could try installing one of the Linux distros, they're pretty user friendly these days.
 
Depends what you want to spend, Parish linked to eBuyer above, you can get an OEM copy of XP for about 40 quid (last time I looked) and there's plenty of info around on how to install an OS.

eBuyer are also very cheap. My PC would have cost approx £1200 if I'd bought it preassembled from Dell etc, total from eBuyer for parts was less than £500.
 
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