i'm going to have to ship a lot of this stuff to the ups store in detroit, which is steps from the bus home. they'll charge me $5/package to hold it, but it's still a dramatic difference.
consider the phone. i have to wait until the check gets here to order it. but, it's $65 if i ship it to detroit and $195 if i ship it to windsor. if i can pick it up on the way home, some morning, the only extra fees in front of me are that $5 holding charge and customs on the way in. that's still less than $80, meaning i'm saving over $100 usd, even if i have to make a specific trip.
but, that means i want to ship everything in at the same time and make one bug run, if i can. so, i'm sorting through as many things as i can on amazon, looking for deals...
$13 for a 250 gb pata hard drive is pretty cheap, right? well, i decided to be a little more discerning about brands and sellers and instead opted for a $19.99 option that is selling unsold inventory, that is drives that are still shrink-wrapped, and even has a three-year seller warranty, probably because they're just trying to get rid of them, anyways. sorting through the comments, people are angry that they're buying drives that were manufactured in 2006. i'm kind of laughing about it. but, something jumps up in the comments of a 120 gb drive that i was scoping out as a backup:
these are 160 gb drives, not 120 gb drives. so, they're not good for use for old computers with a 137 gb limit.
what?
having jumped from a 20 gb hard drive i bought in the 90s to a 4x250 sata setup in the mid-00s, this isn't something that ever entered my radar. is my board even going to read a 250 gb drive?
well, i did some reading. i need ata-6. do i have ata-6?
well, here's my old board, which is still working flawlessly, all these years later:
http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/asus_p3b-f/p3b-f-1.html
(note that it's y2k certified)
it's ata-33. what does that mean? it means ata-4. do i upgrade this in the bios, or is it physical? it's physical. what does that mean?
In order to properly access the full capacity of an ATA interface hard drive larger than 137GB, your system must meet the system requirements described below. There are three general methods of support:
1) Operating System Solutions for Windows XP and Windows 2000
2) Ultra ATA/133 PCI Controller Card for Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98SE and NT 4.x
3) Intel Chipset Solutions for Windows Me, 98SE and NT 4.x (partial)
i'm running xp sp3. that's ok. but, if i want a 250 gb drive, i'll need to get a controller card, which is more expensive than the drive. but, wait - i also need chipset support, and this old thing does not have it. it's a 440BX (seattle). i would need an 8xx series chipset.
so, scratch that. i'll need to find something under 137 gb instead....
keep in mind, here, that i'm replacing a 20 gb drive, and i never saw a need to increase space on it. the 250 gb approach was because it was cheap and it was unused. it's no real loss. but i don't want to spend too much on this, either.
i may be better off sorting through kijiji. i'll take another run through to see....