PC TURNS ON & OFF BY ITSELF

[AronSearle]

put my old hard drive into one of these enclosures, obviously purchasing one of these from the shop.

Basically yes.

But the problem you have is really simple, I am slightly concerned about anyone acting as a repair shop yet can't fix such an issue with ease, it is a simple case of swapping out bits until you find the culprit, which is only difficult if you are not sitting on a pile of spare parts (and I understand like yourself are not used to pulling them apart).

Your internal hard drive just sits in a bay with 1 power cord and one data cable attached to it.

You can unplug it, and insert it into a hard drive enclosure, which allows you to plug it in via USB to any other computer, and then just read the data like you would a memory stick.

 

[JohnD]

Unless you already have a spare hard drive which is fairly new and in good condition, you will do better with an external drive. You can backup or copy onto it, say once a month or each time you load more photos, then put it in a safe place. The DVD option will be cheaper if your machine already has a DVD writer. You can probably put all your photo collection on one DVD.

If you just have one hard drive, you will be stuffed when it fails, or if you get a bad computer crash.

 

[Nicetoseeyoutoseeyounice]

Thank you AronSearle, that's what I thought, I mean 2 days in a computer shop..............I'm beginning to think I know more myself, especially after coming on here. We will wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Thank you JohnD for your advice concerning the external hard drive.

I don't suppose there's much left to suggest, there is the power supply, the on/off switch, the motherboard (hadn't been checked when I rang them) as you all say, it's a case of elimination. I will let you know the outcome.

 

[Nicetoseeyoutoseeyounice]

The outcome was not good.

The shop couldn't locate the problem but have saved all my work. I suppose really it was 'old' age. Nothing lasts forever and it was bound to happen at some stage.

I now have the fun selecting another PC and then even funnier, setting it up. Just thought I would let you all know the result and thanks for all your suggestions.

 

[AronSearle]

Old age?

about 4 years.

I've got computers over 10 years old, including an 8 year old laptop on 24/7 as a media server, 4 years is nothing.

I hope they didnt charge you for their inability to do a basic repair task.

 

[Nicetoseeyoutoseeyounice]

No, they didn't charge anything, honestly.

I have more disasters and going to write a new post, better not put it in here, but if you can help please let me know.

Thank you.