Joseph on Nostr: My daughter who has schizophrenia and some paranoia bought an old and beat up Dell ...

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?

#Linux #Dell #Hardware #PC #CPU