Documentation
You know the problem..... The hardware is still there but the manuals are trashed years ago during a yearly clean-up session of your wife..... How do you ever get that fine piece of electronics back to work again??????

Maybe your problem is not as big as it seams and surely do not divore her ( yet ;-) ) as the boys & girls of the BBC Micro Documentation project are scanning every manual they can lay there hands on. Although it's not Acorn Electron oriented ONLY they do such a good job that I'm not even trying to setup my own documentation project.