<![CDATA[My daughter who has schizophrenia and some paranoia bought an old and beat up Dell 960 desktop computer without a hard drive on eBay.]]>My daughter who has schizophrenia and some paranoia bought an old and beat up Dell 960 desktop computer without a hard drive on eBay. She wants a legacy computer because she thinks it is more secure than a newer computer and it is pointless to try convincing her otherwise. After reseating the two loose memory cards, I was able to successfully boot up Linux Mint Cinnamon from a USB drive as shown in the attached image. I can access the Linux Mint menu using the Windows key, but for some reason a USB mouse is not working. I am going to try using a dedicated mouse port instead to see if that works.

I have attached a photo of two unused cables that I assume are for the missing hard drive. Am I wrong? One of the cables is damaged and I may have to replace it. I am obviously not a hardware guy and am just stumbling my way through this. If I buy a 3.5 Dell SATA hard drive, can I expect it to plug and play (if I replace the damaged cable)? Or, is it more complicated than that?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/topic/81e9bc3d-bf5e-4185-a812-0b014c71354a/my-daughter-who-has-schizophrenia-and-some-paranoia-bought-an-old-and-beat-up-dell-960-desktop-computer-without-a-hard-drive-on-ebay.RSS for NodeMon, 28 Sep 2026 12:02:22 GMTSun, 27 Sep 2026 20:39:57 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to My daughter who has schizophrenia and some paranoia bought an old and beat up Dell 960 desktop computer without a hard drive on eBay. on Sun, 27 Sep 2026 20:46:57 GMT]]>@JosephMeyer
oops - good choice with Linux Mint
the lower cable looks a bit like a data bus for the hard drive... but normally it has more connections...
how old is the computer ?
the above cable looks like the means cable... but normally they are smaller and a bit different
I boost it ... not the great nerd either...

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/solarkater/statuses/117344961651274629https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/solarkater/statuses/117344961651274629Sun, 27 Sep 2026 20:46:57 GMT