wizard, I just wanted to say I have a 6 year old Dell, and though I can no longer extend the warranty (could only get it for 5 years), the last 2 years I had what was called Gold Support. I'm not sure if I paid extra for that over wwhat it would have normally cost for years 4 and 5, but with the Gold Support, my repair call was to be answered in 5 minutes....and it always was. Additionally, other than the initial repair call to tech support which was overseas (India I think) all the later calls were to US tech folks. LMK if you ever want me to check for a US repair # for you. My one and only call to India was a disaster and drove me nuts. Additionally, since having the Gold Warranty for years 4 and 5, I am entitled to tech support for the life of the computer.

I thought I'd report back for people who are still looking. I ended up getting the Canon Pixma MX850 (after seeing the review at pcmag.com which suggested that there were substantial improvements over the earlier model (they were not directly comparing it to the mx700, but rather a recent MP??? model. Nevertheless, it sounded like this 850 was better than what came before (the details about how skip my mind, but I know in readin it, it seemed worthwhile). I had someone set up the Canon on Friday. It is big (and as Jane said, it's attractive and seems commercial in quality). I LOVE IT. The software is not bulky like HP, and it was easy to connect the printer to my desktop, my daughter's, my husband's laptop and my laptop. I can scan documents and the wonderful lcd display will walk me through simple steps. It asks if I'm scanning from the platen or document feeder, if it should be saved to a pc or faxed or emailed (I believe those were the choices). Then you can choose which computer to receive the scan (that computer must be on to receive it - otherwise I think it could be sent as an email attachment to be loaded on the computer later), and whether it should be saved as a pdf file or jpg. There are other formats for saving it in as well but I haven't tried that yet. There's also a way to optically capture the text and turn it into a text document which I think can be edited (for those without the expensive Acrobat Writer which allows editing of PDF files but costs a few hundred dollars). I know some of the above is very simple and naive, but I've included for folks like myself who have no idea what they were looking for. It easily prints in color or black. It has a duplexer. I'm not sure I'll care that much about printing two-sided documents, but I love the either of feeding 2-sided documents in the ADF (auto document feeder) and being able to copy or scan them without standing there and changing pages. That was a huge factor for me in getting this over the MX700 which doesn't have a duplexer. At first I hadn't considered the convenience of copying and scanning 2-sided documents by loading the sheets in the ADF, pressing a button and walking away. That's convenient. This printer is also remarkably quiet. I was used to loud functioning from my HP PSC 950 and didn't realize printers could be so quiet. I could even carry on a business call without interference. I'm thrilled with this machine (which Dell has for $239 - best price I found). Even my husband who saw no reason for obsessing about this choice is amazed at how much functionality and ease of use is packed into a $240 machine. When he saw what it did, he assumed I'd paid over $500. Lynn.

These days, a printer is almost a disposable item. You can sometimes get a new printer cheaper than the cost of 2 ink cartridges. The downside of your situation is that you don't know if the printer you buy today will be compatible with Win8 when it is released. When Win8 is released, printers that are compatible with it probably won't be discounted much...if at all. I have an HP Officejet 4500 which does an ok job of print-copy-scan-fax and is available in both wired and wireless. It does not tolerate off-brand ink cartridges but it does work well. It might be okay to get you to the day when you get a Win8 computer and a printer that works with it.

If you are doing an "image" or "clone" backup, that will include the OS as well as all your installed programs, updates, and document (pictures, music, etc.). Then if the hard drive is indeed failing, you can purchase a new one, not expensive at all now, install it, and use the clone to reinstall your entire computer with everything just as it is right now. There are several free programs that will make this type of backup for you if you can get one to install. This will save you a ton of work bringing everything up to date since XP has been around long enough that there are a ton of updates. I have used this one and find the GUI very easy to follow: Here is a link that might be useful: EASEUS ToDo Backup Free