Dinosaur of a computer needs repair

rusto85

New Member
Hello all, this is my first post and thread. I've been roaming around the forum for a while and finally decided to join today.

Well what brought me to join, is that I need some help getting some info out off an antique of a computer. It's got an 85mhz Pentium processor.....(I believe that's 1st gen)
It belongs to a friend's dad. All that he wants is get all his private info out of it.

What I did is first is pick it up at their place....I didn't realize what a task I had volunteer myself into. I've never seen a computer this old. Ofcourse I'm only 20 and have been using computers for 5-6 years. I thought I grabbed all the essential items...keyboard, power cord, and the item being dealt with.
The first problem I found is the computer doesn't have a normal (at least for me) keyboard connector. It's the predecessor of ps2. I tried to find a keyboard through all the old comps we have, that would work with this old system. No luck. Then I went for a old comp parts run at a few local thrift stores...but nothing.
I was told by the owner of the comp, that it wouldn't power up....well I plugged the sucker in, connected a monitor.....and all I got was money!....well the computer works....turns on and everything seems fine. Though the problem I got was....Error no keyboard found....press esc to xxx or F1 to continue.
Can't do nothing about that. So I've decided to take it apart and plug the HDD into my computer....not as old as the one in question.
Could I do that and get all that info out of the system? or is there another method to extract the hdd contents? The size of the hdd is 800+ megabytes....I'm pretty sure I could just burn a data cd if I can get that info.

Also the old comp is running on windows 98 I presume...mine is running XP....plausable?

Thanks in advance.

BTW I will be building a system for myself soon....with the new quadcore 45nm Intel chips :)
 
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That looks promising. Now I just have get back home from work and check out what kind of hdd I'm dealing with. If that product works...I'm getting one! :)

Thanks...I'll post as soon as I get home....probably put a pic up of the little monster.
 
Dump the computer and buy all new hardware... lol probably cheaper

Trust me I'm about to do that, but it's not mine. hehe. Plus all I need is the info stored in the hdd. It's a POJ (piece of junk), and it's probably darn slow. I was asked by my friends dad to upgrade stuff on it....I chuckled at that comment....I asked him why would he want this old thing to work with....A decent computer runs pretty cheap nowadays anyways.
 
Trust me I'm about to do that, but it's not mine. hehe. Plus all I need is the info stored in the hdd. It's a POJ (piece of junk), and it's probably darn slow. I was asked by my friends dad to upgrade stuff on it....I chuckled at that comment....I asked him why would he want this old thing to work with....A decent computer runs pretty cheap nowadays anyways.


Hehe let me help you get the info out of your HDD that you need.

Step 1: Grab Hammer

Step 2+: .... You Know ;)
 
Well I got some pics:

I gave it an extra 10mhz on the description....oops! hehe
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Not quite an icebox
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Size did not matter back then:
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Internal speakers ftw!!!
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clueless
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is it a ps1?
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^ps2 sure don't fit

hard drive....sata2 correct?....that's what I see
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Sorry about the crappy camera phone pics...don't have my camera with me at the moment.
 
Haha! That made me laugh!

A 486?! LOL! Did he tell you if it was the SX or DX version? :P

Quad speed CD Drive... 4x? :D I have one somewhere. Works like a charm in my mom's Celeron.
 
No unfortunately he doesn't know squat about the computer....he only knows it ran back in the day and his info is in there. hehe.

So it appears to me that the hdd is compatible with the product SirKenin posted on. Am I right about this?
 
just make sure you recycle it and not just throw it away. units like the one you just got do alot of damage to the environment. you might be able to melt down the plastic and sell the plastic to a plant...
 
Can you get them in the UK?

Could you plug an IDE DVD Drive into this, with a SATA HDD?
http://www.techfocus.co.uk/USB-Adapters-Dongles/TFA12.htm

If you check the website that SirKenin provided you'll see that they have four different types of power connector types. UK, Europe, Aus, American....And in the process of ordering it's asks you to choose what kind of outlet. My best reccomendation, ask before you buy. That'll be the only way to know for sure.
 
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