PCTech Forums

Looking for an external versatile CD CDRW writer
I am 75 years old with just an old age pension so had this idea to make a few dollars. Many people I know and have heard of have at one time or another lost everything on their computer because of a faulty hard drive or a virus etc!
Well I just bought a program that has restored my hard drive onto 3 CDs. (3.5GBs) I did it again with all my programs, documents & favorites (6.5 GBs) and it took seven CDs! So I thought about going to peoples houses, completely cleaning up their hard drive and defragging etc, then putting their whole hard drive onto CDs so they can keep them in their car for example and if their computer blows up, or gets stolen or their house burns down they can get a new computer and put everything back in!
This I figure would take about 2 1/2 hours and I would charge them $30.00 including the CDs I use!
How about that?
Well this is why I want an external CD CDRW writer incase they do not have one!
Any more help would be very welcome!
Thank you.

If this is something you are seriously considering then a external dvd burner may be a better way to go.A blank dvd disk can hold up to 4.7gb where a cd will only give you 700mb.The catch is not everyone has a dvd rom drive,which would be required to restore the backup.Your service would have to be rendered again to perform the restore.Just something to think about....Here is an inexpensive and here is a .

To liljim.
This is my answer!
I thank you very much for your suggestion!
I agree with you now that as hard drives get bigger and bigger my way of making a few bucks is going to get harder and harder!
Your idea of DVD writer is of course much better,but I now realize (as you mentioned!) that I will have to return to put the hard drive back in as not too many people have a DVD burner!
This takes more thought which I am now doing, particulary as I will have to pay more for a good DVD writer, also I have to get one that will work with any computer!
Thank you and cheerio