New computer

[Saltheart]

My computer started going to Checkdisk when I started it instead of booting and running Windows. It happened aseveral times and finally it took checkdisk to get the drive cleaned and actually run windows. I lost files and apps that I did restore but then it happened again. Long story short , the C drive is going. Now I do have a backup drive and a bomb proof one in a cabinet drawer but I looked at all the info after running belarc and it seems the box itself is 7 years old and the youngest of my drives is 7 years old. Others are 10 or more!

Si I looked into fixing up what i have cause the pentium 4 and MB are fine but after thinking on it , it didn't make sense to spend $200 to spruce up a 7 year old computer so i went to dell outlet (bought all my computers there for years now and snagged a great deal on a core i3 with 6 gig ram and 1T HD and especially the video with the HDMI connection. After techbargains coupon and free shipping and $80 free Ram I ended up paying $400. That's pretty good.

Plugged everythng in and it ran like a charm. don't even know how but somehow it just picked up my internet cable connection and started working.

Biggest issue is the old IDE drives and the new SataII interfaces. I have some usb enclosures so I'll put the old drives in there and download what I need from the old system. i did manage to backup all critical stuff after the worst of the Checkdisk meltdowns so all in all , I got off easy.

I think I'll keep the old machine for tasks that tie up the computer for a long time. I may even revive my old days as a big newsgroup down loader. We'll see

new machine has windows 7 so I need to play with that a little. Only real issue so far is my MSOffice program. The new machine came with a 2010 starter office program but that's just word and excell basic stuff. If it had outlook I might just use it but it looks like I will have to reinstall my 2003 Office pro and finding that disc will be difficult. believe it or not I have the program key but I don't have the disc. I do have all my discs on a harddrive somehwhere but again , finding it is a lot of work.
The new computer is obviously a leap ahead from the 7 year old one. I hope it gives me 7 more good years like the last one!