So the internet on my usual computer stopped working one night, which isn't too uncommon at my house when I'm up at an ungodly hour. Generally a reset to the router fixes it, but that didn't work. Long story short, I tried lots of things, and two of my computer-proficient friends (one being a grad student in Computer Science) tried lots of things and were completely stumped. Both had suggested reformatting in hopes that it would fix the internet problem, and since my computer is 2 years old, just to clean stuff up a bit. If the reformatting wouldn't work for the internet, I'd take it in to get it fixed.

Anyway, I lack an external harddrive with enough space to save all my pictures/music/video/etc. but figured I could use my older computer as one. Is there a way to boot my old one up as just an external, as to avoid the whole second monitor/mouse ordeal? I have a CAT-5 cable handy, which as I recall, is for linking to computers together. If this is possible, what's the best approach?

Secondly, what all would I have to move besides obvious files? I have my Windows boot disk somewhere, and a few other installation disks for programs and games I use, but are there other easily missed things I need to find and save before wiping clean?

Thirdly, my iTunes library is very important to me. 2/3rds of it is made up of my CDs, which have filed themselves neatly away in My Documents and won't be any trouble to re-import. However, the remaining third are a number, but not all, of my downloaded songs. Is there a way to keep my library as is despite the reformatting?

Any other advice is appreciated.

You might be able to reinstall the operating system without reformatting, you could try that first.

I don't know how you would set up the other computer without a monitor unless you took out hte hard drive and put it in this one.

Remember to try simple things such as using a different Cat5 cable, and making sure your NIC is working.

If you can figure your way around it or your grad student friend can, try booting a linux live cd that can do diagnostics and see if its a hardware or software problem. You might just need to reinstall some drivers and such.

As for using the second computer, unless you have it setup to be a server you'll need the I/O setup in order to use it. Alternatively you could buy an enclosure, pull the hard drive and just use it for backup until everything gets running again.