GF's Dell Optiplex 260 won't start.

Green light on motherboard indicates that motherboard has power but there is no response from the start button and no indicator light on the start button.

Can anyone assist...........other than to advise tossing it out of the 11th floor that she resides on?

I've got another Optiplex GX 620 up and running but I'd really like to fix the old one to get the data off it.

Anyone know if I can put the drive of the 260 into the 620 as a secondary drive? Looking inside the 620 doesn't remind me of anything I'm familiar with............like the location of the hard drive............

TIA.

Is the Optiplex one of those smaller form factor Pentium desktops? If so, the problem could very well be the dreaded "capacitor leaking" plague from early 2000's.

You should be able to access the drive via an IDE to USB adapter.

Yep, that's the type. What are the ramifications of this dreaded "capacitor leaking plague"??

Can you provide some details on how to access the drive with a USB adaptor?

It's dead, with no resurrection.

Dell may replace the MB, given the huge black eye they got when these started croaking - even though it's out of warranty. They did many for us, but we buy 1500 boxes a year from them - not sure if we've been given special treatment or not.

If the computer is dead, you can remove the drive and install it in something like this to turn it into an external drive and recover the data:

http://www.amazon.com/External-Enclosure-Case-Blue-Laptop/dp/B000FNBYKW

That looks perfect.

It allows the computer to access the drive via USB?

Any special software required with the computer to make that happen?

Any way to make a confirmation of that..............or determine if it's a power supply problem................or does the green light on the board eliminate a power supply?

The computer was manufactured in 2003.............

I don't use windows computers, but I believe you should be able to plug it into a good computer and it will see it as an external drive. AFAIK, windows will do that automatically without any additional software. I've done it with macs.

Thanks............I'll definitely go that route..............it's a rock bottom cost to get her data back.

She'll also end up with an external drive to use for backups so she won't have this problem next time.

I am pretty sure these dont have an onboard power supply. It is most likely the capacitors, as mentioned. It can be easily repaired but it may not be worth it. Dell probably wont replace them, they have a bad reputation for covering anything out of warranty. I have several Dells that are toast due to this issue, they refused repair.

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After looking around, I believe I need this for the desktop:

http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-USB-DSC5-3-5-Inch-Converter-Adapter/dp/B000HJ99DI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1289148066&sr=1-2-spell

Anyone confirm?

She already has an 8G flash drive............plenty of space..........doesn't use it.

If the broken computer is a desktop with a full size drive, you probably do need an external power supply. I thought you were talking about a laptop drive, those are normally self-powered by the USB from the computer.

The Optiplex 260 is a desktop machine with a full size IDE drive.