Hokay, so this will technically be my first PC build, at least one im doing on my own. I have a few questions.

1) I live in Orlando Florida, any buildapc redditors nearby who would be willing and able to provide local knowledge of retailers? as a second part to the question, are there any stores like Micro Center near here? i have a friend who lives out in Marietta GA who could ship me parts if there is/are walkin only deals, but id like to be able to go and get help from someone in person who knows what they are doing.

2) At the moment, i have a laptop that i use for everything, and an outdated PC that I bought off of a friend a few years ago, and I'm kind of using that as a jumping off point. All I can currently think i can/want to salvage out of it would be the hard drives and possibly the case, as one would think it would be easier to use those and save $300 . As a second part to this question, and yes, i am a noob, If I have windows vista stored on those drives, could i just hook those up to a new computer without any problem and run vista? or would i have to go out and buy windows 7?

3) I need help in choosing a motherboard and a CPU as well as a GPU, if anyone can provide insight on some good choices from personal experience, i would greatly appreciate it. As of now, my budget is mia, i have 1 and 1/2 jobs and nearly no expenses other than saving up for community college, but i already have most of that put aside, so my price range for the whole build is probably gonna end up in the 1200-1800 price range.