Our home PC, an e-machines T6532,suffered a catastrophic failure and we are shopping for a new one. First the monitor screen looked over-exposed, and both my research and a live chat suggested that we just replace the video card. Before I did that, the PC failed to boot at all Sunday AM, though the fan worked and the monitor briefly flashed "no signal". More research and a new power supply with no change. The Google research on this "best budget PC" that I bought 2 years ago indicates that sudden, catastrophic failures at around this time in the life of this model are now known to be quite common; one techie has heard of 341 similar incidents. Of course it is a year out of warranty, and a new motherboard (at least $140-170) really is not worth the cost since there is no assurance it will correct whatever failed.

Worse yet, other research suggests that the configuration of the hard drive will make data recovery difficult to impossible. Chances are we lost a few photos permanently, and some files we can probably recreate if or as needed.

Any thoughts on the Dell Inspiron 530 series?

Phoenix, I have e-machine that suffered a similar fate, but had yet taken it somewhere to have it looked at.

Dang, I hope someone can access the HD and get some photos off there, I have many that are one of a kind.

I would double check the ram, remove it and then make sure it locks in tight. Somtimes it gets loose and you will have a boot failure. If this doesnt work PM me and I can give you other suggestions.

oh and you have to snap that ram in hard, so dont worry about oo much pressure. I have to run to a picnic with my youngest but I will be back.If needed you could call me tonight and I can walk you through some things to try and at least get it up so you can get your data, I am taking by your screen name you are probably to far for me to run over and give it a quick fix.

why dont you just download them again... or did you not pay your 24.99 membership fee to renew?

DDD, they are personal pics from my own camera that have been deleted.

What are you talking about for $24.99?

:whistling dixie avatarsmilie:

I think there are a few reputable photo storage, sharing and filing services available on the WWW, probably for a small annual fee - Snapfish, Flickr, Google Picasa, Hello, Easyshare, etc. In my case, I think I emailed the very few photos I liked, so I may be able to recover those few that way.

Phoenix, now is your opportunity to consider a Mac. Leopard's Time Machine feature is pretty cool and much easier to use to back up and recover system snapshots and even individual files than Windows system restore.

Oh wait, if you just replaced the video card and it wouldnt boot after that, take the video card out and reseat it. and again be tough with it. That will cause the pc not to come up. DUH sorry I didn't catch the video card thing the first time around. I feel stupid

Wishful thinking, kms - I installed the new video card after the system failed to boot up. On this model, the OEM video card is part of the motherboard and cannot be removed.

I thought that the black screen was simply a worsening of the monitor situation.

At this point, regardless of which video card I use, when I turn the computer or monitor (or even an old Dell CRT monitor a neighbor allowed us to borrow), the LED lights behind the "on" buttons for the PC come on and stay on, the PC fan runs, the monitor flashes "No signal", then a very brief flash, then black screen. There are no sounds, no beeps. I can't turn the PC off without unplugging it. Nothing on the motherboard, cables or belts, looks scorched or broken.

T6532, why aren't you at your post?

Do you have any lights on the MB when you turn it on? Each computer is different to getinto the BIOS but it is usually the F1 or delte key. If you push one of these keys when booting(after you reseat your ram you willget into the bios, you may have to turn off the the onboard vidoe card to get the other recognized

if you have no lights on the MB, it is probably a pwer supply(even wqith the fan coming on) you can get one at new egg real cheap. I would send you one but I am in the process of moving and have my computer gear(fix it stuff) packed up

and you can try removing the new graphics card, it may not be compatible

I wish I had your machine in front of me so I could just fix it for you

lol.. KMS, i didn't know you were a computer nerd.

anyhoo, I really don't have much to add except, you can pull your hard drive and put it in a different computer as a slave drive. (there are cute little jumpers in the back of the drive that you can set it with) and just make sure it's set as drive 2 in bios [above] then when you boot up the computer it'll be listed as dive D (generaly) and you should be able to save all your stuff...

if any of that made sense, I am runnign the phones today so I can't think in complete sentences..

I would suggest the same...

You love me even more now clown boy huh?

oh yeah! I'm not really a software guy, but give me some jumpers and i can do anything.

lol

I suggest Carbonite. It backs up all you files off-site. I procrastinated getting it, then (temporarily) lost all my pictures. When I bought my new laptop, it was one of the first things I obtained.