Stormin Mormon wrote:
Not sure about "all", but certainly most do.

I'm finding that many things nickel and dime me to death. My "free"
computer that I got this year. Just needs an ethernet card and a
bigger drive. Drive from Ebay, $50, and then take it to my computer
wizzard to get it upgraded. About $125 later, I've got an ethernet
card. Worked for about six weeks, and then something died. Back to
the guy, to charge me $25 to tell me it's beyond repair. So, I've got
$200 invested in a free computer. Well, for $300 I could have had a
new surplus one from Pricewatch.


If your hand fits a screwdriver, both the ethernet card and hard drive
replacement are, together, a two-minute job.

Hard drive manufacturers have downloads on their sites (for free) that will
copy your stuff from your old hard drive to the new hard drive.

Assuming you're running some variety of windows, visit the
"msnews.microsoft.com" newsgroup directory, pick the site that seems best
and post your question. There are, for example, 13 different newsgroups
involved with Vista, 27 for XP. These are in English; there are more if you
count Italian, French, etc.