Ok so my buddy got a 1 gig Athalon with 128 MB pc133RAM, 40 gig HD, DVD, CDR, soundblaster, 32 MB vid card. (prolly more, but I forgot)
He paid about $900 for it which was a good deal a little over a year ago.
He tells me a few weeks back that he's got a few nasty virii. Party time, a worm, (prolly kaaza) and something else. I told him to go to SAF, and they would help him fix it. He said he might just get a new one. (he loves to shop)
So then I told him, well seeing as how it's a year old, and Gateway is selling simular ones for $800, it would be worth about $600 now, but with all that crap on it, I might offer $400 as is, because a good virii eradicating like it needs would probably cost him about $200.
A few days ago, he was complaining about it still, so I said, if you aren't going to go there (SAF) and fix it, you should just let me have it for the $400, In fact I'll work for you for 4 days for it, you pick the days.
This afternoon, he calls to say do you really want that PC, for the four days work? I said yep. So he says OK you're commited then, I am going shopping. I knew he couldn't resist the opportunity to go shopping. (much more fun than eradicating virri)
So if I add that the work I do for him only takes about 5 hours per day, which makes a total of about 20 hours, did I get a good deal?

Originally posted by ATST
So if I add that the work I do for him only takes about 5 hours per day, which makes a total of about 20 hours, did I get a good deal?
Depends how much you pay yourself. Quick calculations says $20/hr. (based on 20 hours and a $400 cost).

um right. Thats why I told him four days. In this case, he pays me by the job, ($100) which takes about 5 hours per day. (sometimes less)
I think his infected PC is worth $400, so I offered to work without pay, for four days in trade.
I figure it will take most of a day to wipe out the system, reinstall an OS, and all the drivers for the hardware ect, plus another day just to tweek stuff and get it the way I want it.
I just wondered if other people thought it was worth either the $400 cash or four days work.

I saw the same machine...or one very similar..go for $250 on Ebay today. Virus Free as well

You could have saved yourself a fortune!

Simon

Most viruses dont damage hardware. A virus is not a reason to buy a new computer. Just like when your car is due for an oil change, you just chnage the oil, you dont buy a new car.

Getting rid of a virus is as simple as fdisking the MBR and repartitioning, shoudl take no more than 2 hours tops to install Windows 2000 on it, or less if its a unix OS.

I know AB, but he doesn't want to fix it himself. Plus he likes to go shopping. I would help him fix it, but he was the one saying he might just buy a new one, so I made the offer.
Yes, it takes about 45 minutes to install windows, but then to get the hardware to perform properly, you have to uninstall the generic drivers one at a time, argue with BillG that a better driver does indeed exsist, and you want to chose it yourself, ect. Then reboot to take effect, then start all over again with the next piece of hardware, just so you can see your millions of colors, nice fonts, and print stuff ect.
Finally you get to install all your favorite apps. Then IE and NutScrape, then disable the recently installed spyware.
When you think you are all done, you have to do a msconfig to turn off everything that set itself to be automatically turned on during the install process . . . and get all those damn shortcuts off the desktop too.
What did you say? 2 hours?
I'm not exactly looking forward to this, but my brats will have a decent PC to play with when I am done.

Originally posted by ATST

because a good virii eradicating like it needs would probably cost him about $200.


Huh? I would take it, debug and flatten the harddrive and start from scratch. That doesn't cost $200