I'm currently doing computer repair as my full time job. The company I work for charges a 30 USD diagnostic fee, just to come to your house and look at the problem. It's then 75 USD/hr, minimum 1 hour, then charged by the half hour. This price is still better than Office Max, which was 199 USD to just look at the machine, and it would have taken days. We don't leave till the problem is fixed.

While it isn't wholly ethical, charging a premium price generally means you get customers with more money, who won't really be concerned about the bottom line as long as the problem goes away. From what I've seen, having just a minor amount of technical ability over the standard user allows you to get away with charging a premium rate. Also a note, 75 USD/hr isn't really a premium rate. We could probably do 125 and still get away with it.

Here's an excellent comic strip that pretty much sums up why you should think twice before you help out a relative with their computer problems!

I used to repair computers for friends and family and whilst I didnt mind doing it, it started to become a burden. I have since found that making websites for people is a little more profitable.

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse
In the days of FAT32, it was a helluva lot easier, since you still could get full access to the filesystem even if the OS on that computer wasn't bootable.

There exist bootable Linux CDs/DVDs/USB sticks with ntfs-3g on them (for mounting NTFS drives) which allow access to the files and have utilities like a partition manager, DVD burner, etc... Just take one of these with you.

Quote: Original post by slayemin
- Sales, negotiation and NLP training

Neurolinguistic programming? Did you mean this as a joke? :)

[Edited by - Lode on December 23, 2009 8:11:24 AM]