We have a 633is emachine,10 gb, 56K modem , with 256 upgraded ram .(I hope I said all that right ..lol)It is 4 years old .We have nothing but trouble since day one , no sound ,modem probs , usb port bad .. just lots and lots of problems .. no help from emachines support .. but anyway , last year the computer just started slowing dramatically .. freezing up , and not following commands ..It really got to where we just could not even use it anymore ..so we got a new computer and put that one in the closet.Yesterday we got it out again because I wanted to see if there was any hope in getting pics off of it we had loaded over time.Everything you try to do on it just gets you error messages .. or messages saying there is not enough memory to run the program(We should not be low on memory ...we have almost nothing loaded on the computer except pics) ..you can't remove programs , print , system restore , or anything for that matter .I was able to defrag to my surprise ..although it took like 5 hours to complete because it is running so slow . Is there any way we can do anything to get the pictures off of there ? Also , can someone email me and help walk me through checking if the hard drive is ruined ? I have been reading some reviews online saying that the power supply in emachines has a tendency to go out .How do I know if that has happened ? We don't know a whole lot about computers ..so I probably sound pretty dumb .. Would it be worthwhile to have someone repair it ? I really am not too concerned with repairing the computer all that much..I really just want our pics off of it ..thank you for any help ... ...thanks ..Michelle

Hi Michelle, I don't know what an emachine is. But if it's got a standard IDE drive, life gets easier. Probably not wortyh repairing the emach, since it never worked well. You didn't say much about your new PC: laptop? desktop? You're welcome to a walkthrough by email, but that sort of defeats one purpose of the forum. My theory is that there are ten pairs of eyes here for each pair of hands, and they are reading and learning. walkthru @ golden-triangle.com M2

Why dont you add the old hard drive into the new machine

As Westrat says your best option is to remove the drive and add it to your new PC as a slave so you can get your photos off. The emachines I've seen (PCWorld specials!!) all had a small power supply & Excelstor branded hard drives, though at 4 years old I'm not sure if they were being imported then or not. Whatever you intend to do, you will need to take the side off your PC to check the drive manufacturer for definite (you can sometimes see the name at boot but not always), then go to their web site & you'll find they all have specific diagnostic tools you can download & run to check the drive for errors. "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

One hardware option an experienced person can use is to remove the disk drive from the old machine, change its jumper from the MS (Master) position to the SL (Slave) position and then connect it to the spare IDE cable plug on the new machine. This will then allow you to copy all of the Pictures off of the old disk drive onto the new one. Does require the ability to handle a screw driver and get a few plugs inserted correctly. The danger here is that the old machine is full of ADware/Spyware, Virus and likely Worms and Trojans. These are what are slowing it down. They could infect your new system if you are not careful. A better way, would be to clean up the old system and see if you can get the CD-RW drive working. Most of the emachines came with a CD-RW drive. This would allow you to copy the pictures to a CD-R (or CD-RW) disk and use this to transfer them to the new system. An even better way (if the old machine has Windows ME, not 98/98se) is to buy one of the USB memory sticks or thumbdrives. You could then copy pictures to it and transfer them to the new machine. The important part is cleaning up the old system so that it runs well enough work. It really needs a current version of a Virus scan and then SpyBot S&D and Adaware SE installed and updated online and ran to find and remove all this junk. Read page on what needs to be done. Problem is getting the system safely online and downloading the updates. Often a major problem on badly infected machine. (I really hate it when people give up and just throw good hardware away because they can't fix the Malware junk that gets on their machines.) A quick and dirty way around all the spyware and ADware would be to start the system and run MSCONFIG. In the Startup tab list uncheck all of the items except (ScanRegistry, SystemTray, and *StateMgr) and click Apply and reboot. Most of the Virus and Malware will not load and the machine should run well for awhile. However the modem may not work, you may not be able to get on the Internet and your CD-RW will not work. BUT, a USB memory stick should work and you can transfer picture files to it.

JackG, Good points. My guess is that the old drive is too hosed to be worth a cleanup. I wonder how much threat malware on the old drive would be as a slave. For the truly paranoid, boot on a floppy and delete all exe com pif etc. In short, everything but the desired jpg jpeg files. Then put it in the new box. M2

I have an eMachines 600is. 5 years old and although slow compared to the newer computers, this one runs just like new. Once I figured out Windows ME and eMachines computers like to be run clean and light. I stopped having problems. eMachines came stock with 32meg's of ram. Not near enough. So, if you havent added a 128meg strip(160meg total), do so. Next, shutdown all those things running in startup not needed. Go to Pacsportal and find out what you can turn off. http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php Next, I don't know what anti-virus you are running. Let's assume AVG. Go here and follow the instructions for setting up AVG to find all viruses/trojans and also in this link ... is a clean for cleaning your system after running your antivirus. This should get your system fairly clean. http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?4,6421,backpage= If your not running AVG anti-virus .. Run whatever antivirus you have and just skip to this link: http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?4,4346,backpage= Then post back if your still having problems.