Budget RAID 1 system... PLZ help

I have built a number of systems in my time, but I have not done a build in about 3 years, and as such much has changed. Go figure. Either way, my father gave me a call a week ago to say that his computer would not boot. The short of it, he has not done any backing up in over a month and his hard drive died. I figured it would be best for him to be setup on a RAID 1 system, so that if it happens again, it will not be the end of his world as he knows it. He does not use his computer for much beyond WP, internet travel booking, and doing a bit of photoshop kind of stuff. Either way, not a big power user to say the least. The problem I have is his system is rather old, Slot A vintage, so RAID is not an option on his rig.

I figured it was about time for an upgrade for him, but my question is should I go for LGA 775 or AM2? I was looking at either getting him a Pentium D 805 or Athlon 64 3500+ since they have the best performance/price ratio. The only question I have is the life of the socket. I am leaning toward the AMD since socket AM2 is new, especially compared to the LGA 775. I am not sure about what kind of life is left in the LGA 775 compared to the AM2, not that anyone here would probably have the best answer to that, but what are your opinions? I do not know if he will get more into the photoshoping that would push him to seeing an advantage of getting a new processor a year or two down the road. So I would like to go with the socket that has the greater life expectancy if you know what I mean.

Thanks in advanced, and Core2 is not really an option since at the present time that is more than my father needs so if we can possibly stay away from the AMD vs. Intel stuff I would appreciate it

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I was just going to pull his old floppy and a couple of other items off his dead computer to include on this new build. As well as go with the Seagate drives.