PC downloaded a google redirect virus that defied my amateur attempts to remove with McAfee. Took PC to a shop for them to get rid.
Call from shop to say that a power capacitor must have popped when I unplugged the machine. Power still getting to unit but it won’t boot up and probably needs a new power card.

They managed to save most personal files (but not outlook express) to my external drive but replacing the power card may be prohibitively expensive (it’s a 4y.o. Dell XPS 24 all in one with spendy bespoke internals).
I bought another PC (Win8.1 sucks) and loaded the saved files.

I took the old machine home to try and extract the OE files using a USB cable and a laptop.
So far I’ve switched it on 3 times;
1st time, blue led lights, lots of fan noise but nowt else.
2nd time, BIOS screen comes on and allows keyboard functions. Screen is stable and fan speed is fine.
3rd time, dead as a dodo.

What next?

Get the hard drive in a caddy attached to the new machine. Yyou can get all your data off then without worrying about the server.

[edit] and I’d be careful about continuously booting up the dodgy server you don’t know what the power supply is delivering to the hard drive and you don’t want to fry it.

Ahh thanks…that might explain the deadness on third attempt!

I’ll need to check if the HDD is a standard size, there’s some weird gubbins in there, like an oversized laptop.

There’s no such thing as a non-standard hard disk.