Computer help?

All the public libraries in our area have (free) computer/internet access and include printer use, also usually free for a few pages and maybe $.10 after that. You can call them to check on their policies.

Boy, do you guys make me happy that I'm in the Mac universe! To start up in the OS CD, all you have to do is insert the OS CD (or if the computer is so screwed up the CD drawer won't open, just restart while holding down the eject key, which allows you to insert the CD), then restart while holding down the 'c' key. The computer then restarts and runs off the OS CD (or any bootable CD) and you can perform lots of operations, including browsing the internet and examining/fixing/initializing the hard drive. In fact, you don't even need a hard drive in the computer! Of course, things go slower than they do off a hard drive, but at least you're not dead in the water.

I think your advice is about on the level I need, gasby, thanks. I think I'm going to have to go with a new system and try to get it from a local store.

The local library is always JAMMED with computer users. I just don't go there. Maybe it's worth checking again though since it's been awhile.

Is this advice only good for a Mac?

Give me about a minute alone with your mac and your mac OS will never start ever again

Give me 2 seconds and I'll do the same

What's this? The Great Mac-PC Wars?I didn't know there was such feeling on the subject.I'm often a bit annoyed with emails I get from Mac users especially if they send pictures. Always some glitch or other to deal with.But the artists wouldn't have anything else.

Not really. I could do the same with a PC. It involves use of a phenomenon called 'the effect of impact on electronic componants'. Used (in more gentle fashion) on old style tvs to get them to work right

Haven't you noticed that when a man gives a lady a box of chocolates he winds up eating most of them himself? The lady is right if she thinks he has just one thing on his mind - just a little too optimistic about what that is. Sorry to clutter your computer's brief bouts of sanity with irrelevancies. I'll sign off this thread for now. Hope your problems are soon resolved in the most pleasing manner. Bye.

Don't mind the kidding around myself.I've been online over three hours now and haven't crashed. It's amazing. I'm afraid to log off now. Soon as I do anything different it could crash.But this thread has been great. I've picked up quite a bit of knowledge here. Don't suppose I'll be doing any computer building myself in the near future but I have a good idea now what is the best way to deal with my particular problem. That is, a new system. No point in dealing with the stress of trying out parts I don't know enough about.I found out here that I need a lot of RAM because I work with so many windows open. I hadn't realized that mattered so much. I found out my XP CDs should work just fine. Magnets don't bother them and they haven't been made obsolete. I know I need to find a way to get stuff off Zip disks into a computer without a Zip drive, but I'm optimistic that a way can be found. Maybe I'll even find a friend who has both a Zip drive and a CD burner and can do the switch for me. I have offers of a couple of old computers to get me through to a final solution if need be. I know one of them doesn't have a Zip drive, don't know about the other yet. I can't access online computer sales sites but that's a minor problem. And other help has come through too, reducing the money problem. The Lord provides.So if I crash I crash. It will work out.So I'm happy. Kid away. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

MuahahahahahahahahaMy first date, or one of the first dates anyway, with the wife involved me giving her a box of chocolate and then ended up eating most of it. Come to think of it, everytime I've given her chocolate always involved me eating most of it. Wow, this is the best psychoanalysis of the man-woman relationship I have ever seen.

Actually, yes. I spent the first half of my life as a geek not knowing anything about mac and I thought it sucked. I spent the second half of my life as a geek trying to find out everything about the mac and I still think it sucked.The only thing mac is good for is being a paperweight.

Well, a couple of moves in the last few years have disorganized things around here quite a bit but I do still have those CDs.The Windows XP is not in its original box but the guy who got it for me wrote out some code on it, a bunch of letters and numbers. Must be the thing I need. The Office XP is two CDs in a folder with a Product Key on a sticker on the back. Must be the thing I need.

Then a new machine (much like the second machine listed above) is your easiest, and best option.Despite what has been said as to the ease of changing hard-drives, swapping floppy drives and replacing motherboards, if you have to ask what a 'Pentium' is then I would shrink from recommending you attempt these tasks yourself. At least the first time, unless you had a knowledgeable friend in the room walking you through it step by step.While you CAN keep fiddling with a machine for years the useful life of a unit is around 3-5. After that then the technology has usually shifted enough to mean that a meaningful up-grade will, in effect, require you to replace enough of the core components that it is oft easier to simply buy a new machine.For example a year or two ago the standard for connecting graphics cards (mini computers designed to solely handle the task of drawing stuff on the screen) to the motherboard changed from AGP to PCI-Express. You don’t need to know what these mean, only that to get the latest and quickest graphics card (PCI-E) you would need to get a new Motherboard. It’s odds on that the new motherboard would also have been designed to accept only the newer SATA hard drives, meaning you would have to buy new hard drives. As you have just replaced well over 60% of your machine you might as well go the whole-hog and benefit from a newer CUP and Memory (Ram). If you go that far then as the new CPU, motherboard and not least the graphics card will need batter cooling than your old case is likely to provide then a new case is probably in order; not least to house the new power-supply-unit (PSU) you will need to power it all.Throw in the fact that having to swap out all these items yourself (it seems) would scare you witless then buying a new, better system is the best route.Also as a new system bought from a shop, if it goes wrong then you have a service route and an avenue of complaint aside yourself. A luxury you don’t have if you perform the surgery yourself . .A final comment I would say get the best system you can afford at the time as the better the system the longer it will remain useful before a serious up-grade is required.Also make sure you get at least 1gig of memory. This alone will make your new machine a far nicer place to work..