Grab -

I'm not sure about the current conversion rates, but there are a few "home quality" "web PCs" available for about $250 (US). A knowledgeable user, able to do his own installation might get a CD burner for about $40, but the run-of-the-mill decent ones in the shops here are $70 and up. (The ones I would consider for my own use run up to $150 or so, but units in this category would be useless with the kind of machine I must presume for someone who's not used his existing floppy drive.)

Based on the kind of question asked, I'd have to assume that this user would pay $30 to $50 to get even a $40 drive installed at a typical service shop here. I suspect that the prevailing labor rates are somewhat different between our locales, and his result would depend strongly on local rates. For the kind of stuff this user would find most available the 2x (to 4x) price difference is not too far off, although I'll concede a little exaggeration for emphasis. [$250 new /($40 drive + $30 install) = 3.6?]

The cheap estimate for getting someone to install a burner or ZIP ignores the likelihood that a machine old enough to not already have a burner may not have the power supply capacity and/or the controller port(s) to add such hardware. Add $49 for a 350W supply (about minimum with a CD burner and one or more other drives) and $39 for an EIDE controller (his may be an older EID type, and/or ports may already be in use - there are only 4 to a controller), plus installation, and you get to break-even quite quickly - and you've still got an old machine.

The cheap way out would definitely be to enlist a knowledgeable friend to help with an upgrade, and search for low cost components; but if such a friend were available, the question wouldn't appear here.(?) [Asking around might even find someone with the junk box full of parts to get "a solution" for a couple of beers.]

I've generally recommended against the $250 machines, for friends who've asked. The problem is not particularly with the machines, but with the software that comes bundled (or that doesn't come bundled). But there are people for whom the cheap things will do what they want.

I did help a friend with purchase of a new "minimalist" one recently that came in at about $1,200, and he seems happy with what he got; but I wouldn't consider any I've seen recently for my own use that wouldn't be nearer $2,500 (but then I've already got 5 working machines, and "need" something better).

As a side note, I'll agree that the DVD is coming, but it's not quite archival yet. I've used mine for a few burns, but have had "drops" on individual files that are unexplained, and it's a r.p.a. to go through 4.7GB to verify that each and every file got copied correctly - but seems necessary for data files, not so much so for music since you'll either hear it or not. There are at least 5 still competing and not-fully-interchangeable standards for file format, and at least 3 "partially interchangeable" disk standards. Additionally, the more sensitive data layers on current DVD disks cannot be shown to have reliable storage life after recording longer than the 3 to 5 year range that's accepted for magnetic media.

A "problem" seldom noted by those who burn a lot of CDs is that recovery of files from a CD is usually at 1x speed (or less), even if you can burn at some super rates. I can burn a data CD in 10 minutes (SHE has a faster burner - 3 minutes tops) but it can take 20+ minutes to just copy one back to the HD where you can use the files. I haven't tried a back-copy of an entire DVD, but it obviously ain't gonna be hard drive speed. Just finding a specific individual file seems to take "forever" when you're used to working from HD.

A side "feature" not often noted is that the Joliet standard for file names may change the names of some files if you've used long file names and/or a deep folder structure. Every data file on a CD includes the entire path in it's "Joliet file name," with a limit of 64(?) characters. The "filename" you had on your hard drive is what gets truncated if the path+name is too long. The Joliet standard also uses/excludes a slightly different character set, so that a few characters you might use in file names on the machine will be "illegal" on the CD. A hard drive copied to CD doesn't necessarily have the same file/path structure as the original, and can't be readily "restored" just by copying things back. You should get all the files, but they may be slightly renamed.

John