Got the old computer up and running.

[John Schmidt]

Guy in the computer shop wanted a good chunk of $$ to order and do the replacement of the power supply on my old Gateway. I looked online and ordered one for less than $50, it came this past week so today with temps in the 5 deg. range I figured it was a good day to experiment. The replacement was fairly straight forward...unplug one connector and plug the replacement in. Went through that for each active connector, still had a few extra lines left over. Not a big issue since the power supply is designed to work for more than one model of computer. I have an old monitor and a spare keypad and mouse so plugged them in before firing it up, then it was time for the smoke test so plugged in the tower. No smoke yet....good! Hit the ON button and waited...next thing I hear is the old familiar clicking and grunting of the computer firing up. The monitor lit up and shortly I had the old familiar desktop display. I clicked on various programs I have installed and they all quickly popped up. Next I tried out the keyboard and it works fine. I didn't have it connected to the internet but have no reason to doubt it. I shut down, all worked as in the past, waited for about a half hour and fired it up again just to see if the first time was an accident. Sure enough, came up like always. I looked for some of my Excel and Word files, only to find out the shop had not cloned the HD, he just transferred files so they're now on the new unit. I now have it running so thinking I might just clone the HD so I can wipe the old HD clean and reinstall W10. Then if one of the kids/grandkids want it they can have it. I plan to continue using the new unit, slowly working my way through the learning curve. I figure a lot of my programs on the old unit won't work on it even they're both W10...just different versions. Not sure how I could isolate the old W10 OS to put it back on the old HD, maybe I'd be better off just copying all the stuff I want to an SSD then removing that from the HD via the Control Panel. If someone has an idea how to go about that I'm all ears...or eyes in this case.

I could have just let the old unit die a quiet death, but something inside me always wants to see if I can  get a non-working item to work again. Whether a computer, motor, motorcycle, etc., even fixed a non-workind treadmill I got for nothing and sold it for $300. Another time I tore apart our Maytag washing maching, fixed the gearbox, new bearings & some other stuff. Wife used it another 7-8 years. When we moved she wanted to leave it behind, reason being....she was tired of old repaired stuff and wanted me to finally get her a new washer & dryer. I did. 

[Robert]

Glad you got it up and runing nice to see your old information there and having access to it, almost as much joy as fixing it.  

If you have programs running on old W10 they should run on the new W10 should not be a problem.

Unless you have a specific security reason for not cloning the drive then clone is going to be a better option and you always have the old drive incase you get a virus or something happens that frys your computer.

If you install the drive and cannot run the OS then you can always access your personal files which is anther form of fail safe file storage. From installing it as a additional drive on an up and running computer.

If you have programs that will not transfer over then clone the hard drive, since the rotating hard drives are a big problem and keep that computer for just those programs. You can find new programs to run what you want on the new computer while you phase out the old one.

That is exactly what happened to me. Had XP on an old computer with all my accounting software and work specific programs on it. Made another computer because I Knew it was not long for this world and just started to use the new computer with the new programs and phased over to it. Only looking occasionally at the old computer and made a backup of the programs on USB. Sure enough after sitting and not being on we gave it a proper burial or at least relegated it to the storage area.  

Anything that has information on it and that is electronic NEVER erase it UNTIL you are sure all the new systems are up and running and your information is completely there. All files do not transfer well and the only real way to make sure you have all you information is to clone the drive and even then, sometime files will encrypt and can only be opened by that computer only. Transfer will not work, so keeping the computer in whole till your sure is always a good idea.