Old mobo died, now what?
 

Okay, so my 6 year old computer I gave my sister had a few capacitors blown on the motherboard. Problem is that this motherboard is not produced anymore (ASUS A7N8X-X), and I was wondering whether or not I need to buy an identical mobo for her hard drive to work. I heard that that could be a problem. It's an old IDE hard drive and she doesn't want to lose her files, obviously. Some guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Replace the caps. They are through hole electrolytics, right?
You have nothing to lose but time...and a few dollars. Get low ESR types.
Don't go to RadioShack - go to a real electronics parts store or buy on-line.

I'd rather not solder anything if I can simply replace the board. I was just wondering if I will still be able to use the same OS and files with another type of mobo.

Maybe. If you delete everything out of device manager, uninstall every driver you can find, and then turn it off and replace the mobo, it MAY work. I've had it work before but I've also had it not work before and end up in chaos.

For some reason, I read this thread title as "My oboe died, now what?" It made me laugh. So I clicked. Then I realized it was in Tilted Technology, and that I know little about such things. I do hope the best for your sister's data.

Why can't you just pick up a cheap HDD enclosure and recover her data that way? then you wouldn't have to worry about whether you get the same one.

So all I would have to do is stick the hard drive into the enclosure and copy over the files to my PC? I have an enclosure, but I didn't know that you can put just any hard drive (this is the only one and is a master) into it and use an external device.

I just had this happen to me, replaced the mobo/cpu/ram from 3btech.net for pretty cheap and replaced it, my os booted just fine afterwards, I did end up reinstalling the OS because my adobe products wouldn't work right then. But ya it should work just replacing those. If not, throw in another hard drive install the OS and backup those files on to it, and have extra hdd for storage or.
Install os on new drive
+
Sell old drive after backup
=
PROFIT

Yep, you should be able to use an enclosure, or one of those new spiffy swappable HDD docks (if you can find one that takes IDE), and move the files out by directory.

I wouldn't bother trying to recover anything from a 6 year old computer..just rip the data out.

Instead of an enclosure, which will work as described above, you could also just place it in any computer as a secondary drive. It will work on the same principle.

As long as you are not booting to it, any OS will just simply see it as a secondary drive, and you will be able to see the files on it.

I have done both methods countless times with great success.

Thanks a lot.

I will try it on Monday because I left the computer at work over the weekend.

Since the hard drive is a primary drive with the OS on it you may run into security problems when you try to access the data on it, particularly user data like My Documents and files on the Desktop. If you do, post here because we can help you with it. Good luck!!

Okay, I'll post on Monday after work with updates.

Okay, update. The eclosure trick worked wonders. I'm copying the files over right now. Pretty much all documents and settings and desktop items were accessible.

Thanks!

Windows security is pretty borked when it comes to drives. Hypothetically you could run into accessibility issues, but in 10 years of doing this crap I've never seen/heard of it.

I miss my A7N8X. That was a good board. Mine was first revision, and I had it for five years or so before it decided to pop a cap.

I also have nothing of value to contribute.

Quite funnily, this one lasted 5.5 years. I built this computer back in 2003, so I don't know what revision this board is.

The A7N8X was one of the most famous Socket A motherboards made along with the Abit NF7-S v. 2.0. Those mobos bring back a flood of memories. :thumbsup:

Glad the files are being copied over!!!!!!

Okay, new problem. I finally got around to installing the new mobo. Surprisingly, the hard drive works fine. All I really had to do was install new audio and video drivers.

However, I've run into a strange problem. The browsers will not open secured websites, namely those pages you get to after logging in. So email, facebok, myspace, amazon accounts don't work. I forget exactly what the message says, but it shows a yellow square icon with a policeman holding up papers.

Any idea?

EDIT: Wow, maybe if I had learned to read, I wouldn't make these stupid mistakes. The problem was with the time. All I had to do was set the current date. False alarm.