Need assistance

[drtong]

Recently my in-laws computer stopped working, not turning on is a better symptom. It is a custom built computer that they have had for almost nine years now, so my knowledge of the brands and specs of the hardware inside is not very good. However, when I took of the case I noticed that when you push the on button you hear the power supply buzzing and a LED on the motherboard flashes on and then off. At first I assumed that it was the motherboard, but now I am not so sure. I checked the power cables and outlets and made sure there were no lose cables and did not find anything overly obvious.
Side note, I have told them for years now to get a new computer, but they said there wasn't anything important enough for them to spend the money, but now the computer is dead they must have the info off the hard drive.
Any tips for a plan of attack or a way to extract the data off the hard drive with my laptop or desktop would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[kimsland]

Wow 9 years !

I'd remove the internal harddrive (should be fun - they weren't made for techs back then)

Then install their hard drive as slave to your PC (just use the CDrom data cable)

Then backup everything to your PC (Desktop\Backup folder) probably going to be around 50 Meg max

Then shutdown and remove the slave hard drive (put the CD data back in)

Then burn their backup to CD

Then throw away the entire computer !! (if it's a 486 or 386 keep it, for nostalgic reasons)

 

[drtong]

I figured it wasn't going to be too easy, but I will try this out. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Tedster]

your power supply is on it's last legs. replace it.

but since the system is 9 years old - it is better to back up your data and get a new system and xfer the data.