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Computers! Bah! Humbug!
16 years ago
General
My laptop is dying. When one of failing parts is the power button and that is integrated into the keyboard, it's not exactly practical to attempt repairing it.
A new laptop has been ordered and is enroute. Now comes the fun of cloning the h/d. Since I run Linux it's a tad more complicated in some ways, and easier in others. The unfun part is the fact that the old laptop is a Compaq and, as usual, they have some sort of stupid proprietary connector on the h/d. In fact, I ordered a replacement from them (at three times the price of an ordinary replacement) and it turns out they don't stock h/d's with that connector any more, so I had to return it. Which was a major hassle. More than a trifle annoying, all of that. They made sure I won't buy anything else from them.
The replacement is HP and hopefully it will have standard connectors. From the description, there's a second h/d bay internal. Sure hope so, that will be very useful. Since it's a refurb, I got it for less than half of retail and $1.99 shipping. Not a bad deal.
I noticed that serial and parallel ports are no longer provided, only USB. I've still got some older equipment that use those, so I'm going to have to come up with some sort of adapters, or else get my desktop working again. That requires a new mobo, processor and RAM, which will cost more than the new laptop. <sigh>
A new laptop has been ordered and is enroute. Now comes the fun of cloning the h/d. Since I run Linux it's a tad more complicated in some ways, and easier in others. The unfun part is the fact that the old laptop is a Compaq and, as usual, they have some sort of stupid proprietary connector on the h/d. In fact, I ordered a replacement from them (at three times the price of an ordinary replacement) and it turns out they don't stock h/d's with that connector any more, so I had to return it. Which was a major hassle. More than a trifle annoying, all of that. They made sure I won't buy anything else from them.
The replacement is HP and hopefully it will have standard connectors. From the description, there's a second h/d bay internal. Sure hope so, that will be very useful. Since it's a refurb, I got it for less than half of retail and $1.99 shipping. Not a bad deal.
I noticed that serial and parallel ports are no longer provided, only USB. I've still got some older equipment that use those, so I'm going to have to come up with some sort of adapters, or else get my desktop working again. That requires a new mobo, processor and RAM, which will cost more than the new laptop. <sigh>
http://www.cyberguys.com/product-se.....d=usb+parallel
Hope these help
I know the adapters exist, and it's not too surprising that they're gradually dropping all the old legacy stuff from new machines. It's just the annoyance factor, I suppose. I just have a number of toys that are old. Including an 8-pen large format plotter, that I haven't run in ages. Suppose I should, just to make sure it still works.
I was looking to get a spare hard drive for my laptop and can't find anything worth while.
In fact the last I looked there are even fewer. I need EIDE and all I can find now are SATA.
The few EIDE I can find are 80GB to be a replacement for a 120GB. The only adapters, internal, state they do not work with Intel and my laptop is an Intel.
Not my favorite company to do business with, but they have one.
Best Buy has a Western Digital 160GB for $79.99.
Or take a look at an external hard drive, There are quite a few of them around, and most of them use a USB connection.
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4010243&sku=M122-7828
Another option, if you have an extra hard drive sitting around, is to just buy an enclosure:
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2145406&sku=V13-3254
I've seen the external hard drives at Costco for a fairly attractive price, too. Any computer supply house should have both.
btw, CompUSA is where I got my new laptop. Just click on laptops, then refurbished to see what they have at the moment. I'm a bit picky, I much prefer AMD processors to Intel, based on some extensive and painful prior experience. And I was specifically looking for a 17" because I want the 101-key keyboard. I use the numeric keys a lot.
http://www.pricewatch.com is one of my favorite sites for searching out computer parts. Give them a look, too.
As for external, I have a 250GB and a 1TB on here right now. The 250 is the auto back up for my data.