Need Advice!

My wifes HP died this morning - pretty sure its a HD failure.  It won\'t boot up and gives a "disc error" hit any key to continue over and over again (no floppies in the drive).

Her computer is over 3 years old - it is an AMD Thunderbird 1Ghz.  I pretty much have all the parts for a new PC minus a motherboard and a processor so instead of getting a new HD, I was thinking of upgrading her with a new MB and processor - and I want to go CHEAP.  I was thinking an AMD Athlon for the processor, but my question is:

I have some Kingston PC2700 ram that I used in my P4 machine and was wondering if this ram would be compatible with an AMD board?  I have very little experience with AMD products - so if someone could give me a quick answer I would appreciate it.

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Sure will, pc2700 = 333mhz DDR.

It\'ll work fine.

If there was important stuff on it check out my failed Maxtor thread.

You may want to watch out upgrading a proprietary system though.  I know for a fact Dells use special power supplies and the WinXP install CD may be freak out if it doesn\'t see the motherboard.  A few snags in your plan but it\'s still a good idea to upgrade if she could really use the extra processing power.

I have a whole new case, drives etc.  I will also not be using her old Windows ME disk for the OS install

She will aslo be getting my old ATI 9700 Pro - which will be a huge leap for her coming from a GeForce 2 GTS.  I think I could probably save some data maybe by using the freezer trick - I will try it, but like I said I think for an extra $100 (minus the SATA HD I have) I can get a MB and Proc and give her a complete sytem as opposed to just buying her a $120 HD.

one thing to remeber is that if you do try the freezer trick make sure you put the HD in a ziplock bag to prevent frost / condensation.