Hotspur93

So it looks like the OS is toast. The drive that it is on is super dead, anytime I attempt to use that drive it gets to be a billion degrees hot before I've even gotten to the point to pick my user. So looks like I'm gonna have to but that OS after all, unless someone here knows how to recover the info from the drive and get it onto another drive?

What would be the best way to confirm if it's microATX or some other custom mobo?

Here are some additional photos of the case I want to use, I may have to make some modifications though. Lets here what you guys think!

The case is actually whatever came out of the box with the Gateway FX-6800-01e. Im not sure it has a particular name but I can possibly find an old part number....maybe?

I do appreciate the effort to reduce costs and I'm glad to see everyone pitching their ideas! I do see the benefits of going thru AMD as they are a little more budget friendly. And the price I listed of $500 isn't a set number. Its more of a what can I do with that budget and hopefully get a decent set up that will last until more funds are available. The other things I'm seeing that are closer to the $750 mark are probably the most I would spend on this particular build with this case and goals. Also because that's probably the most money I could get together without having to eat ramen noodles for the next 6 months . Obviously there are a million ways this can be done and I'm excited to see where this goes! Now I do have some questions for the community, 1st being the difference between ATX and micro ATX. My understanding is that largely its only a size difference, the difference also allowing for a large variety of options in terms of CPU's, RAM slots, etc. I know that this is probably a vary basic comparison so I'm hoping to get a better understanding. One thing I have been trying to consider is if the case will accept different mobo forms, sadly I'm a noob and not sure how to tell.

Well I'm going to keep researching and see if there is any way to save the Windows 7 OS I currently have, I'm concerned that the bootmgr error im running into is software related and not hardware related. If it is I believe it will be rather difficult to save the OS. Shoot even if I can save it I'm not even sure I can move it from the old HDD to the SSD I want to get.

@Vandorlot I'm worried that the motherboard on your list wont fit in my case. Like I said I'm not super tech savy so im not sure the difference between a micro ATX and ATX motherboard. : /

Hey all! So this is my first post here on these forums as well as my first build! I've been an avid gamer all my life but most of my gaming has been done on consoles or prebuilt machines. Well its time to change that! I want to do my own build however I'm not making it easy on myself. A lot of you may disagree with me, but I love the case on my old Gateway FX 6800-01e. Its got the patina and sentimental value of hours and days of gaming for me everything from WoW to BF2. I've done what I can to keep the old girl running as just a home computer for checking emails watching videos and what not as her days of playing games seem to have ended. What I want to do is replace the internals but keep the case, I have no idea how difficult this will be which is why I'm here for some advice from the interwebs. Here is what her inards look like now: I know the cable management is awful, but I needed a new power supply and this one was on sale! Also the original AMD card burned out and I replaced it with a Geforce GTX 730, not a great card but gets the job done. Unfortunately the old girl has started to fail..... I've looked at as many solutions to this as possible on the web, I've done everything short of reinstalling the OS cause I cant find my OS disk. I did have windows 7 which was really nice rather than the original Windows Vista. ANYWAY.... here are the parts that I was looking into buying, I omitted an OS for right now although I'll probably have to get one : / https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mqDVJV My planned uses for this computer are to be gaming and some streaming. The games I enjoy playing are everything from Minecraft to PUBG and Space Engineers. I would like to have a dual monitor set up at 1080p quality if possible. Please let me know what you guys think! If at all possible I would like to get my budget down to $500 from the current $750. Also fair warning I'm not super tech savy but I do have a running knowledge and I am a quick study!