Need A New Hard Drive

[MDF3530]

The other day, I tried to get on the Internet, but couldn't. I tried my parents' computer (the one I'm using now) and the Internet connection was working fine. I tried rebooting my computer. All I got was a blue screen and "Boot Device Unavailable". I described the problem to my brother-in-law (he works in the IT department of his company), and he said it sounded like the hard drive went bad.

I went to a Best Buy today to look at prices for hard drives. I saw some decent ones with 120GB for about $100. Now, I'm guessing that, when I do take it in, the total cost of the repair bill will be in the $200-$250 price range. Does that sound about right? I am planning to check CompUSA tomorrow.

My brother-in-law told me he ain't giving us any more free tech support, so he will not install it. It's understandable though. They don't live as close as they used to and he doesn't even work on their computer anymore. When their computer needs service, he takes it to the nearest Apple Store. (I can't do that; my computer isn't a Mac )

[Aaediwen]

Drive price sounds about right, but I can't speak for service fees. I do all my own.

[mingkee]

there're a lot of places on internet sell hd for cheap
I recommend newegg.com
you can buy a hd case
then put the new hd in, fresh install windows
after that, install the "bad" one on the external hd case, then plug in
if the hard drive has not died yet, you still have chance to copy the data back
this is not that hard

btw, if you're living in NYC or surrounding area, pm me, I can do it for you for.....(I don't want to say free)

[Monarchs Own]

I just installed a new harddrive myself. Not really hard.
Open the back up, unscrew the old one and put the new one in. Run your boot CD and you should be fine.

I would not let me charge an arm and a leg for a guy just taking out a few screws and replacing a hard drive. Not really worth the money.

Best Buy charges about 60 bucks plus as far as I know per hour. This whole thing should take not more then 5 minutes to exchange and then you have to consider the time to reload the other things. But if the old hard drive is gone - there is not much I guess there can be done to retrieve the info.

But I would check it out and see if you can't do it yourself. Saves a lot of money.

[MDF3530]

Big problem-

I just talked to my brother-in-law. He's the registered owner of the boot CD. He'd have to pay the licensing fee to have the software installed on my new hard drive, and he told me that he isn't gonna do it.

Now, I'm gonna have to consider just buying a new CPU. Otherwise, when you add the the price of the OS software ($200), the hard drive ($100-$150) plus the service charge ($50), that'll fall in the $350-$400 price range.

[MDF3530]

Here's what I would like to get and come back from the Dark Side ...

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

[Haldur]

Yeah, the Mac Mini is very affordable and considered really super buy for someone on a budget (like myself) I would recommend it because you get the Mac system and OS in one package for around $500; all you gotta worry about is having a monitor, keyboard, etc. but that's easy!

Plus, you get to test the waters out with the OS 10.3 which I've heard is far more stable than any Windows or Linux OS out there!

I say go for it, but that's just a window-shopper talkin'!

[MDF3530]

I already have a monitor (17" flat screen CRT), keyboard and mouse, so the Mac mini would be good for me. Also, like I just said, it would allow me to come back from the Dark Side !