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My PC has completely stopped working and, of course, it's full of porn, not to mention other personal stuff that I don't want a repair man looking at. Now I have the problem of what to do. There's nothing actually illegal on it so there's no danger of a Gary Glitter type scenario but you couldn't miss the thousands of porn pics and mpegs. Even the wallpaper is hardcore.

Before you say that people who mend PCs see this sort of stuff all the time, I should point out that I'm more worried about all the personal stuff, including details of people I know and things I've done that are very personal. Anyone accessing my PC could find out bank details, names and addresses of other people who I've contacted about swapping porn videos and God knows what else as well as info on work colleagues, family and friends. It would be worse than like being burgled.

Unless I can find a repair person who can mend the thing while I'm standing next to him (with a very red face) the only thing I can think of is to replace my hard disc with a new one and then take the PC to a repair place, replacing the origianl hard disc when the PC is working again. I assume this wouldn't be too difficult although I've never taken a PC apart before. I'd be VERY grateful for any other suggestions.

I know this is O/T but I'm sure it will be of interest to many readers. At least they could heed my warning and do what I should have done, i.e. buy a CD-drive to avoid saving onto the C drive.

How do you know the HD isn't broke? Does it(the HD) still make a sound on boot up(do you hear the whirr of the spindle)? If the content isn't 'illegal' then I suppose it would be okay to get it fixed(with the Hardcore HD).

Buy a new hard drive, then load windows and all your other bits on it.

Once your pc works plug in your old drive.

Did you have a virus scanner running? If not your drive may be infected so if you plug it back in again it may just affect your new drive.

But for your ease, pull out the hard drive and when you take your pc in ask them to put a new drive in.

I use a zip drive to back up my data.

could be I can help point you in the direction of a guy I trust!

e-mail me and let me know your general location, then I'll see if I can help

Cheers

Rab

The plan you proposed yourself is probably what I would
do ... and rather neatly resolves the problem.

You might explain to the repair guy that you had heard
that hard disks are the most common item to break, so
you thought you would have a go at replacing it before
giving in and calling in the repair bloke, a very
reasonable explanation.

Dig out your documentation and make sure you are buying
the right kind of disk drive (probably IDE). Buy one
that is larger than the one you own now and have a go
yourself, you might be pleasantly suprised at how doable
it is.

Also, look out you original O/S disks because you or
the repair guy will have some re-installing to do.

How old is your PC? I ask this as it could be cheaper to buy a new PC, you can get a top end one at ?350.

In future best bet is to keep all your porn and personal data on cd's with the aid of a cd-rewriter ... you can get thousands of large jpeg's and many mpeg's on a single disc and add to your collection as required ... it may not be quite as convenient as storing on your hard disc but you can relax if your pc ever needs repair or is infiltrated by a virus or hacker ... leave your hard disc for programmes and less-sensitive info and your private stuff in cd sleeves, it is well worth the peace of mind ...

Quite, Charley. I've learned that the hard way.

Thanks to everyone for their advice. It looks like replacing the HD is the easiest option to go for. I don't think it's the disk that's faulty though, going by what Joe King says, as I get hardly any of the usual whirring and bleeping noises when it's switched on. I'll be contacting RabC as well.

The PC is 3 years old, with Pentium III, 6 gigs RAM and a DVD playing CD drive, so I doubt I could buy a replacement cheaper than the repair price, but I'll keep an eye on any offers.

So I'll have to get by for a while without jpegs of Nadia taking it up the shitter or Layla nibbling a nob. And all I have to comfort me is my vast collection of adult magazines and videos. I don't know how I'm going to cope.

You'll manage.
And good luck with the fix.

I know I may be slightly away from the actual problem of the original post but it is computer related!

Is it true that anything you have on your computer is still retreavable even after deleting it?

This is what I was told! (i.e. If I download a jpg of mpeg and delete it after a while, it isnt actually gone completely)

This basically means that even if I think it is gone a repair man could still go in and find stuff!

Anyone able to confirm this?

Cheers