Ok...so ive never been a big fan of dell, but a friend of mine sold me his Inspiron 1100 laptop for a very reasonable price ($400), and its brand new and works perfectly.

The specs are winXP Professional, 2.4ghz Pentium 4, 256mb ram, 20g hd, and a dvd-rom. Im looking to upgrade it to 512mb ram, and popping out the dvd-rom and replacing it with a dvd-rw. Also, I have a 60g hardrive on my desktop which i would like to make into an external drive, so i could use the laptops 20g for my OS, and keep music and files on the 60g.

-How much do you think I should be willing to spend to upgrade to 512mb, the dvd-rw, and making my 60g an external?

-Do you think it would be worth it?

-Can you recommend me to some online sites that will have the parts that I need? (memory, dvd-rw replacement for laptop, and external HD setup for an IDE 60g Maxtor)

-Can the Dell Inspiron 1100 be used w/ a docking station, if so where can I buy one online?

Thanks alot for the replies guys.

-Nick-

I wish I could get a deal like that..
You can get all that stuff at Tigerdirect.com for very reasonable prices, or at newegg.com
Newegg has had better prices on items I'd looked at, and free shipping on stuff too..

Whether or not you need it is up to you.

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All your base are... a bunch of cheap, low-res pixels on an overheating box.

Well yeah I think it probably is worth it, think of how much you saved from actually having to buy it new.

The problem with laptops is that you have a lot less options in the hardware that is actually compatible to your product.

I've seen the ram for $60

and I found a DVD-rw for $149 but I'm not sure if it will fit the inspiron 1100.

I also found this for the 1100, but its not a DVD-rw nor could I find one.

Here's a docking station: http://www.laptopsforless.com/dockingstations.htm

Not sure about the hard drive.

Rob

Thanks for the replies =) -Nick-

I would also take a peek at Ebay, especially for the docking station.

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No no, I think you're wasting your time. I think you'd be better off selling it, and whaddya know, I know of the perfect buyer....me!

That sounds like one hell of a deal to me!

A DVD-RW isn't too expensive if you ekkp your eyes open on ebay. And caddys for disks are easily available. But wouldn't it be bette rto set up a lil wireless network between your desktop & the laptop, so you get the best of both worlds.

Or you could always sell, I'll give ya 450!
GF

Thats a really cool deal (IMO) there was a place called <removed>.
i really think it was a fly by night outfit but i bought some great stuff from them before they got lost.So they say ,they will be back might be worth
checking it out,but im sure theres better places,i just wanted to say great deal you got there.