Hi:

1) possible causes
        - lighning strike nearby
        - no surge protector on system including phone and or nic lines (which
people forget)
        - maybe a known problem for HP with that model board

2) yes you should be able to r&R the circui t board to recover the data if
it is that important to you.  If really important there are compaies that
will do if for you for $$$$$.




At 04:27 PM 07/25/2002 -0400, you wrote:
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>Went away last weekend, shutting down all PCs.  Returned to encounter an
>odor of electronic components burning/shorting out.  Discovered that an old
>HP I use for device programming would not boot.  Turns out the circuit
>board on the HD literally fried; one corner black & crumbling.  Drive
>contains data that cannot be replaced (please no comments on backing up;
>usually back up to cd once a month, but lapsed on this machine for the last
>2 months).
>
>Question 1:  What could have caused this?
>
>Question 2:  Is it possible to replace circuit board on HD (if I can find
>it) and maybe recover data?
>
>
>
>Ian Carmichael
>
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Thanks,

Joe

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