W3JDR wrote:
There's an old saying that seems to apply he "Who's more of a fool, the
fool or the fool who follows the fool?". This isn't a matter of deceitful
Asians or East Indians, or Russians, it's a matter fools rushing in where
others fear to tread.

I knew a guy who used to go around to hamfests, fleamarkets and such things
buying drives that were bad. He had memorized a list of manufacuturers and
their date codes that were being repaired under warranty, athough there
was no recepit, etc. They warrantied the drives for X years and if you
called/emailed them with the serial number for a drive they would
replace it free if those X years had yet to expire from the date of
manufacuture.

I of course had no such luck, the one drive I bought from a ham at a hamfest
with a warranty was dead. He gave me a card with his phone number on it, the
phone was never answered. :-(

Other people also buy the drives beacuse without any testing there is a
50-50 chance it's circutry card on the drive or the mechanics. If you can
inspect them carefully, or know the reputation of certain models, you can
imporve the odds. If you buy enough drives cheaply, you can mix and match
parts and get working drives out of them.

Memory is also a good bet, if you have the correct tools and skills, and
get them cheap enough. Memory is discarded if one chip (of 8) or more is
bad, so if you buy two units (SIMMs or DIMMs) there is a good chance
you will get 8 working chips out of them. You need a diagnostic tool that
will pinpoint the bad chip, and the skills to remove them and re-install
good ones.

Obviously the skills are not commonplace and the tools are expensive,
but if you do enough, you can learn to do it easily and pay for a set
of tools.

Since just about everyone I know has a box full of "dead" RAM (except
people who don't fix their own or others computers, or just throw it out),
you could get all you need for next to nothing pretty quick.

So there is a good market for bad computer parts, but not a good chance
of buying one and having it be good.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 Fax ONLY: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/