So my son had been telling me for some time that their computer at their mom's wasn't working. She finally asked me to take a look at it (I kept forgetting) this week so we pick it up and I investigate.

From their description of the problem I had been thinking that either a hd had gone out or it just needed a new OS install.

It turns out the problem was even easier to solve - replace the power supply.

This made everyone happy, particularly the children who had installed games for which they appear to have lost the install keys which would have been rendered useless if I had to do an OS install.

So this afternoon I was a hero to my children.

We shall see how Sunday goes... :-)