Hello,
I am working on an IBM Netvista that may have been damaged by a storm...I'm working on this for someone else and the problem occured after a storm but there's no physical evidence to reflect that possibility. It looks like it is an upgrade model 6266 that had a processor upgrade to PIII and OS upgrade from W98 to W2k.
The problem is that after a storm, the PC no longer powered on. I thought originally that it was a power supply issue, but after replacing the power supply, the fans spin but the disk light never illuminates. I'm thinking that it may be a fried 'something else.' There are no post beeps, or indication of anything happening other than the power is on and the fan in the power supply and on the heat sink spin. I tried other memory (thinking it could be the motherboard, memory or video card and the other memory was the only option).
The couple I am working on this for is a retired couple, still on dial up and no plans to upgrade to broadband. Basically, they use the machine for email and some basic publishing for their church. I would rather not spend the money on troubleshooting, given that a low-end PC that would suit their needs could be purchased for probably what the replacement parts might run.
My question is...is there a way I can access the disk to recover a couple of files? I tried putting it in one of my other PCs, but when the system begins to post, a message regarding IBM recovery appears and I cannot get past it. I have the options of putting it as a stand-alone PC (which is what I've tried), putting it as a secondary in a current W2k PC or installing it as a secondary in a SuSE linux PC (I'm a relative novice when it comes to linux though).
Since it is a W2k formatted disk, is it possible to mount on another system to access or is there something in the IBM hardware config or from within the config of W2k that would render it impossible? I've never seen the system booted, so I don't know anything related to how it was originally configured. However, I do have a login ID, so I know there was an account set up at some point.
Thank you,
Dave
