excessive data transfer charge?

[shegeek72]

I got charged $105 to have the data transferred from one HD to another:
D: to C: and vice versa (80g IDE, 60g SATA). Was going to do it myself,
but felt more confident letting a pro do it so there wouldn't be any
hassles from problems. The itemized bill was:

$55 labor - service data transfer
$55 labor - service clone HD
With a $15 discount!

Is this a fair price or did I get over-charged?

 

[Big Bad Bob]

I got charged $105 to have the data transferred from one HD to another:
D: to C: and vice versa (80g IDE, 60g SATA). Was going to do it myself,
but felt more confident letting a pro do it so there wouldn't be any
hassles from problems. The itemized bill was:

$55 labor - service data transfer
$55 labor - service clone HD
With a $15 discount!

Is this a fair price or did I get over-charged?

if it took at least an hour, it's probably fair. 1 hour of a competent
computer geek's time is probably worth $100

 

[Technomage Hawke]

I got charged $105 to have the data transferred from one HD to another:
D: to C: and vice versa (80g IDE, 60g SATA). Was going to do it myself,
but felt more confident letting a pro do it so there wouldn't be any
hassles from problems. The itemized bill was:

$55 labor - service data transfer
$55 labor - service clone HD
With a $15 discount!

Is this a fair price or did I get over-charged?

actually, where I am, those prices are market typical.

 

[kony]

I got charged $105 to have the data transferred from one HD to another:
D: to C: and vice versa (80g IDE, 60g SATA). Was going to do it myself,
but felt more confident letting a pro do it so there wouldn't be any
hassles from problems. The itemized bill was:

$55 labor - service data transfer
$55 labor - service clone HD
With a $15 discount!

Is this a fair price or did I get over-charged?

Typical bench fees might start at $50 and up - just to have
them touch it at all. Next what they have to do, could be
easy or harder (than expected, though a data copy is pretty
quick, easy, and straightforward). Even if it was quick and
easy, they're going to charge a flat rate per service (or
more rarely an hourly charge) and many jobs will be easier,
fewer become a PITA and end up being losses to the
technician (most often salvage from virus attacks are the
type of service that can become an extended process but with
a lower set fee, sometimes it's easy but not always).

$105 is fair, it'd cost that much to have a professional
work on many items outside the computer industry. The grey
area here is that it doesn't take a lot of advanced
knowledge to do this particular task, but even so, you did
opt to have a (supposed) pro do it.

Next time you might see if the geek down the street will do
it for you, and negotiate price (though I'd be sure to make
backups of any important data first- but that's a good idea
even if taking it to a professional).

 

[Arno Wagner]

I got charged $105 to have the data transferred from one HD to another:
D: to C: and vice versa (80g IDE, 60g SATA). Was going to do it myself,
but felt more confident letting a pro do it so there wouldn't be any
hassles from problems. The itemized bill was:

$55 labor - service data transfer
$55 labor - service clone HD
With a $15 discount!

Is this a fair price or did I get over-charged?

Typical and reasonable, I would say.

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

shegeek72:
As you've heard, those charges are about the going rate in most places.
Sometimes a bit more; sometimes a bit less.

(Thank goodness for the $15 discount, huh?).

And thank God for people that can't even count.

[snip]

 

[Anna]

I got charged $105 to have the data transferred from one HD to another:
D: to C: and vice versa (80g IDE, 60g SATA). Was going to do it myself,
but felt more confident letting a pro do it so there wouldn't be any
hassles from problems. The itemized bill was:

$55 labor - service data transfer
$55 labor - service clone HD
With a $15 discount!

Is this a fair price or did I get over-charged?

shegeek72:
As you've heard, those charges are about the going rate in most places.
Sometimes a bit more; sometimes a bit less. (Thank goodness for the $15
discount, huh?).

But the purpose of my post is to try to encourage you (in the future) to
undertake this disk cloning process yourself. You'll want to maintain a
backup system so that you could make a full recovery should your system
become inoperable for one reason or another, e.g., a failed HDD, a corrupt
operating system that no longer boots, etc.

Through the use of a "disk imaging" program such as Acronis True Image, you
can relatively easily backup your system on a routine & systematic basis.
The process is straightforward and not terribly time consuming. The beauty
of this type of program is that not only are you backing up your created
data, you're backing up your operating system and all your programs &
applications. So it's a comfort to know that should anything untoward occur
to your day-to-day operating system you can recover fully with a minimum of
effort.

I use the Acronis program as an example of a disk imaging program. There are
others. The Acronis program is particularly easy to use and as I've said, is
quite effective. I recently posted step-by-step instructions for using that
program to this newsgroup and one or more of Microsoft's XP newsgroups. If
you're interested, so indicate and I'll post them again.
Anna

 

[Arno Wagner]

shegeek72:
As you've heard, those charges are about the going rate in most places.
Sometimes a bit more; sometimes a bit less. (Thank goodness for the $15
discount, huh?).

But the purpose of my post is to try to encourage you (in the future) to
undertake this disk cloning process yourself. You'll want to maintain a
backup system so that you could make a full recovery should your system
become inoperable for one reason or another, e.g., a failed HDD, a corrupt
operating system that no longer boots, etc.

Through the use of a "disk imaging" program such as Acronis True Image, you
can relatively easily backup your system on a routine & systematic basis.
The process is straightforward and not terribly time consuming. The beauty
of this type of program is that not only are you backing up your created
data, you're backing up your operating system and all your programs &
applications. So it's a comfort to know that should anything untoward occur
to your day-to-day operating system you can recover fully with a minimum of
effort.

I use the Acronis program as an example of a disk imaging program. There are
others. The Acronis program is particularly easy to use and as I've said, is
quite effective. I recently posted step-by-step instructions for using that
program to this newsgroup and one or more of Microsoft's XP newsgroups. If
you're interested, so indicate and I'll post them again.
Anna

Sound advice. Running without a backup is like driving without
savety belt: As long as everything goes fine, no problem. If
something fails, added safety becomes invaluable.

Arno

 

[Ed Light]

(though I'd be sure to make
backups of any important data first- but that's a good idea
even if taking it to a professional).

That's for sure. When I had Win 98 I had moved My Documents to C:\FILES.

A shop put in a new used cpu and set the voltage wrong, so it started to go
awry.

I took it back and they reinstalled the OS, which deleted \FILES completely!

Thank gosh I had backed it up.

--
Ed Light

Bring the Troops Home:
http://bringthemhomenow.org
http://antiwar.com

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.

 

[kony]

That's for sure. When I had Win 98 I had moved My Documents to C:\FILES.

A shop put in a new used cpu and set the voltage wrong, so it started to go
awry.

I took it back and they reinstalled the OS, which deleted \FILES completely!

Thank gosh I had backed it up.

The sad part is that when a PC is taken to a shop, you still
don't know if a senior there is doing the work or just
taking the system from the customer and leaving the job for
one of the less experienced employees. In the case of
this thread and the drive copy that wouldn't be surprising
at all, since the more experienced employees would be more
valuable at more difficult tasks.

 

[MF]

I'm curious: what did you expect to pay/think was a fair price?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[shegeek72]

I'm curious: what did you expect to pay/think was a fair price?

$30 - $40.

It only cost $49 to assemple, and POST, my entire computer from the
boxed parts. Computers prices are great, it's the repair that I think
is over-priced.

 

[Arno Wagner]

$30 - $40.

It only cost $49 to assemple, and POST, my entire computer from the
boxed parts. Computers prices are great, it's the repair that I think
is over-priced.

Repair needs more competence than assembly and more time. And no,
it is not overpriced, if they did a reasonable job.

Arno

 

[Andy]

$30 - $40.

It only cost $49 to assemple, and POST, my entire computer from the
boxed parts. Computers prices are great, it's the repair that I think
is over-priced.

If you obtain your service from the same place where hardware is made,
you can probably get that price or better.

 

[Alexander Grigoriev]

Well, if the guy knew how to make backups, he would know enough not to use
professional service just to transfer data.

 

[Bob Willard]

$30 - $40.

It only cost $49 to assemple, and POST, my entire computer from the
boxed parts. Computers prices are great, it's the repair that I think
is over-priced.

There is no relationship between cost of assembly and cost of repair:
creating a human costs nothing, but repairing a human can cost a bunch.