I'd ordered another PSU but it won't be here until tomorrow. Minor cost, so it wasn't a big deal to get a new one.
village come to the rescue http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51487&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66033&perpage=6&pagenumber=1
In reading through those threads it would seem that a lot of us have one thing in common. A burnt out Maxtor HD. Wished I would've found that thread when ordering my components the first time. Oh well... I didn't get a maxtor this time. Gonna reinstall the old HD as a non-bootable slave first to see if I can get it going enough to pull the wife's pictures, then maybe take it to the local data recovery shop.
Unbelievable... A guy who has no IT vulnerability and trying to trade.... Is this the early 20th century? Mind as well try calling a broker to fill an order.
We have a winner!!!!!! Even with new HD the problem persisted albeit much less frequently. Replaced the PSU and everything perfect now.
For future reference... a seemingly insignificant part is the CPU cooling fan. When they age they may run at slower RPMs... this allows the CPU to run hotter and can cause a variety of problems which seem inconsistent and sometimes hard to pin down. Erratic power from the PSU can cause similar symptoms. A quality PSU is vital to having a reliable computer.
Ugh...please don't! Much better file recovery software out there. Ontrack Easy Recovery for starters. Cache Landing, were you able to install the old HD as a slave and read it ok?