It sometimes pays to be a hoarder.

[markw]

A bout four - five years ago, mrsw and I bought two identical Lenovo laptops. Nothing fancy, jut something to surf the net and do documents and spreadsheets.

Anyhow, about a year ago, wife's unit wouldn't load windows. It would show a graphic saying it was trying to load windows but got no further. "the guy" said her hard drive died and the cost to replacwe it and buy windows made us think it's better to simply get her a new computer.

So, we did, but I kept her old one planning on taking the hard drive and trashing it before deep 6ing it. Well, I kept on putting it off.

So, last week my Lenovo wouldn't boot. nothing. nada. zilch. dead as the proverbial doornail.

So, I take it to "the guy" and he says my motherboard died and it isn't worth replacing it. He was able to save all my data off the hard drive, which meant that was still good. I started surfing for a new computer.

Then, a lightning bolt struck! I dug out wife's old computer and asked if we could simply put my good hard drive in her identical computer, which had a good motherboard but a dead hard drive.

It worked!!! ...and only cost me a few bucks, a mere fraction of what a new computer, and transferring my data, would cost. They had to touch up a few things but it was still dirt cheap.

So, I now call it my Frankenputer.

 

[Midwesthonky]

Sometimes it pays! If it does what you need, then awesome!

I know what it's like to piece something together. I broke a fitting on the main air manifold for my edgebander in my shop. It's 20 year sold. Naturally it's a custom fitting that isn't made anymore. So I went to a local Parker pneumatic store and pieced together an entire new manifold out of the pieces they have. Sent a shot to my dad and described it as cobbled together. But it works!

 

[MR.MAGOO]

Having grown up on a farm my dad saved / gathered all kinds of junk in the garage, we had a 2-car garage but so full of junk only one car could fit. Anyway when I was a young teen of 13 or 14, I remember dad drove a 1966 Chevy Bel Air 4 door. One day pulling out of the Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot the tie rod snapped on that 66 chevy. Luckily not in traffic! Anyway AAA towed the car home and a visiting family friend who was also an old car restorer was able to patch up the tie rod from junk my dad had around that garage.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I guess I'm on the last person on this forum to be impressed by this tech marvel but what I am impressed more, actually expected it from Mark - is a simple common sense, which was applied here, which unfortunately not very common nowadays.

Only minor suggestion from pro would be - next time just spend few extra bucks and get a cheap ssd. Place it in older computer and watch miracle will unfold right in front of your eyes - old pc is fast again for less than $100
Trust me on this one.
for example only:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226679

 

[tcarcio]

I do the same thing. I save things that my wife say's I should just toss out. But usually when I finally do toss it out inevitably in the next few days I need it. Just my luck....

 

[slipperybidness]

Both of my DVD burners recently died on my tower. I was going to replace them with new ones, but then I found that I had scavenged an old CD burner and DVD burner from older computers when I was looking for something else. So, I swapped in the DVD burner (IDE), and I'm good to go!

That CD burner works, but it was from 1997.....so it is headed to Goodwill.

 

[highfigh]

A bout four - five years ago, mrsw and I bought two identical Lenovo laptops. Nothing fancy, jut something to surf the net and do documents and spreadsheets.

Anyhow, about a year ago, wife's unit wouldn't load windows. It would show a graphic saying it was trying to load windows but got no further. "the guy" said her hard drive died and the cost to replacwe it and buy windows made us think it's better to simply get her a new computer.

So, we did, but I kept her old one planning on taking the hard drive and trashing it before deep 6ing it. Well, I kept on putting it off.

So, last week my Lenovo wouldn't boot. nothing. nada. zilch. dead as the proverbial doornail.

So, I take it to "the guy" and he says my motherboard died and it isn't worth replacing it. He was able to save all my data off the hard drive, which meant that was still good. I started surfing for a new computer.

Then, a lightning bolt struck! I dug out wife's old computer and asked if we could simply put my good hard drive in her identical computer, which had a good motherboard but a dead hard drive.

It worked!!! ...and only cost me a few bucks, a mere fraction of what a new computer, and transferring my data, would cost. They had to touch up a few things but it was still dirt cheap.

So, I now call it my Frankenputer.

That's not a Frankenputer, that's one identical twin donating an organ when it was already dying. There's nothing that would be considered "Abby-normal" about it.

BTW- those weren't bolts on the Frankenstein monster's neck, they were electrodes.

 

[highfigh]

I have a ReQuest music server and I was a dealer around 8 years ago. The drawer stopped opening on one of the ones I sold, so I replaced it with the OEM part, which has a brushed, anodized aluminum piece across the bottom, rather than the plastic face that has the CD logo and some kind of brand/model number. Looks nicer, but shelling out $110 was a bit stiff. I saved the old ones for some reason and when I tried to use my server recently, I found that my drawer didn't open, just like the other one. I removed the unit's face plate and pressed the manual opener before looking in- it has the drawer motor and pulley just behind the face and I could see that the belt had no tension. Still trying to find one that won't come with shipping that's 5 times the price of the part.

My desktop from 2000 stopped working and I think the BIOS battery finally died. I no longer have a monitor that will accept VGA, but I have a bunch of adapters, so I may try to resurrect that one just so I can feel better about how much it cost vs how little new ones cost and my perception of its value. Not a fan of frequently replacing things when they should last longer and yes, I realize we're talking about computers, where 3-5 years is a whole lifetime.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

There's nothing that would be considered "Abby-normal" about it.

BTW- those weren't bolts on the Frankenstein monster's neck, they were electrodes.

Just for a reference to people less familiar with classics:

 

[sholling]

Only minor suggestion from pro would be - next time just spend few extra bucks and get a cheap ssd. Place it in older computer and watch miracle will unfold right in front of your eyes - old pc is fast again for less than $100
Trust me on this one.
for example only:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226679

Great advice as long as the computer is new enough to use SATA drives. I've had SSDs in all of my computers for years and what a huge difference they make on an old PC. I just dropped a $60 250GB SSD in my cheapo ultraportable and it's so ridiculously easy with decent cloning tools that there is no reason to call in a tech. I use Apricorn's $25 notebook cloning kit.