Is it naive to think I can reuse my old hard drive?

JasX

Urg, £40 for a caddy you could have bought a whole new 2.5" portable drive AND caddy for less that'd have probably been bigger and able to store more.

Take it back and get your £40 back if you can as you've been horrifically ripped off and defeated all the economic benefit of re-using the old drive.

Much better solution is to pop it inside your new PC as an extra internal drive -you can access all your old docs that way AND have permanent extra storage space (even if its an old IDE drive its likely modern SATA motherboards have a single IDE socket somewhere, otherwise you'll need an IDE -> SATA converter for about £3 on ebay)

If you must go down the caddy route 3.5" ones are more expensive than 2.5" ones but I've seen them readily available in the £10-£15 price range

JasX

Chomeur wrote: »

My computer is made by Shuttle and both PC World and Maplins told me that they didn't stock a power supply that would fit. So I had to go back to the supplier and they sent me one for £80 (which didn't work). Maybe this is a reason not to buy Shuttle again.

Again please tell me you sent it back for refund and didn't waste £80 on a PSU, for an OLD PC you should aim for a cheap one in the £5-20 range or pinch & recycle one from a friend/family members dead PC.

2nd hand PCs really don;t hold their value and you can usually ebay/gumtree a perfectly reasonable 3-5 year old WORKING one for £50-80.

Where are you buying your new PC from? hopefully not Maplin or PCW as they are horribly overpriced

adouglasmhor

I can get a case with a built in psu for <£30 localy. How did you end up paying £80 for a psu for an old computer.

Chomeur

As I've said I tried both Maplins and PC World at Staples Corner and they both said they didn't have a PSU that would fit. So I went back to the company that originally supplied me my computer http://www.ambros.co.uk/ and they charged me £80.40 for it including delivery. Apparently because it's a Shuttle it's more specialist. Anyway it didn't work, so I sent it back.

adouglasmhor

In other news they have taken the word gullible out the dictionary.

Chomeur

JasX wrote: »

Where are you buying your new PC from? hopefully not Maplin or PCW as they are horribly overpriced

What you've got to understand is that I, like so many other people, have become very dependent on having a computer at home. When it stops working, it's a miserable experience. I'm willing to pay good money to get out of the situation.

Anyway my requirements for the new computer are that it be not more than 34cm tall (in order to fit in the shelf space I have available for it) and be able to run two screens - maybe through having both a VGA and a DVI port. The Shuttle was good for this but given the difficulty in repairing it I'm now reluctant to buy another.

Alternatively I could buy a secondhand computer from a friend for £55 (which in fact I'm already using). It has the two required monitor ports but is taller than 34cm. Is it OK to lay computers on their sides?

Chomeur

adouglasmhor wrote: »

In other news they have taken the word gullible out the dictionary.

That's really not helpful. I appreciated that I was probably being ripped off. But what choice do I have? The time this is taking me is way out of proportion to the money involved.

adouglasmhor

Any small footprint atx would have done it.

adouglasmhor

Or a full sized atx in a separate box outside the case.

Chomeur

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Any small footprint atx would have done it.

Obviously Maplins and PC World don't know of such a thing.