Can any computer buffs out there offer any tips on shipping my computer?

Besides backing up personal data files onto cd, what else should I do? Can I simply unplug at this end, send it off to sea for 3 months and then plug in the other end and all my data will still be there???

Im using Sevenseas to ship and using lots of protective packing and silica gel bags.

Diane.

I was just going to suggest you pack lots of silica gel bags in with the PC. Shoudl be OK though - lots of people appears to ship TV's, electrical good etc and noone appears to have any significant problems!

I recently used Seven seas to ship my stuff (its currently half way to Sydney) and have to say that the service so far this end has been excellent - they phoned me to make sure I was ready for collection day - even gave me a one hour time slot, all the staff have been helpful. Now the my stuff is on the ship they have contacted me with the name of the ship, container number and expected date of arrival in Sydney as well as a tracking number so I can track the parcels!!

Part of my shipment includes a Les Paul guitar so I'm hoping it arrives in one piece!!

Why not send your Pc by air? Not really that much. We/me sent my Pc from Bangkok plus about another 6 same size boxes for about 300 quid. All arrived in one piece and nothing broken. I personally wouldnt ship my PC for 3 months.

Why don't you sell it, buy a Laptop and take it with you in hand luggage No waiting for months and when you need to look stuff up in a hurry in Oz you are prepared.

Thats my plan anyway.

We haven't gone yet but in prep we have bought an external hard drive that is small enough to go in hand luggage and put every bit of data on it. We did think about getting a laptop but the screens are to small and being so close to it gives me a headache.

How big were the boxes that you sent by air as 300 sounds good and would consider doing that myself.

Send by ship woth the rest of your stuff, insure it for electrical derangement just in case it fails to work at the other end. We shipped desktop computer, washing machine and large TV and all were absolutely fine... just back up your data on an external hardrive that you take with you and just incase put the really important stuff on another external drive and leave with someone in the uk or better still put the data on one of these web based storage sites...

We took ours in our container the packers just made sure it was well protected still using 2 years on so have had no problems we just bought a new moniter and keyboard when we got here as the old ones were on there way out.

kezx

We shipped 5 computers, plus all of our other household electrical goods, and they all arrived intact and are working fine. As the OPs said, back up all your data onto DVD, external hard drive etc and take this with you on the plane. As I'm a paranoid git I also left a complete copy in the UK in case anything happened to the DVD I had in my hand luggage and my container also got lost but maybe this is a little bit excessive As long as you have a backup you're covered. We also bought a cheap laptop to tide us over in Oz until the container arrived.

My PC got mangled shipping by sea ... as did an LCD display which got cracked. I have a customised system I built myself with a powerful fan on the CPU, which sheared off and rattled around inside the case taking out various bits (including the motherboard) with it. I'd say the best bet was to lay it flat.. if I had this may not have happened. Reclaimed it all on the insurance though and now have a much better system .... We had considered shipping our main PCs by air so we had them for use immediately (we work from home - online) but the cost was such that we could buy a brand new Sony Vaio laptop ... so we did that instead, backed up the data to external drives and used them prior to our main systems arrivals.

I backed up all my data onto a laptop that I carried with me on the plane.

I shipped 2 Pc's,a 30" Monitor, a server, color laser printer, 2 24 port Switches, 7 Routers (I've to be careful what I call these over here ), a Firewall, VPN Client and a VPN Concentrator (all Cisco kit).

Everything went by sea and everything arrived in perfect condition.

I was screaming for the PC after working on the laptop for a while though.

What are 'Routers' called over there!?

Put all of your porn onto a P2P network and reclaim it when you get here!

But seriously.....I would recommend buying an external hard-drive (one of the pocket ones) and bringing all of your critical data with you.

Having the original packaging/boxes is also a great help as these are designed for the purposes of shipping.

Our Dell desktop system certainly had no complaints about being at sea for over 1 month. It also sat on a very hot and humid Singapore dock for over 1 week and it was 100% fine when it arrived. Ensure that your shippers mark the shipment as fragile also.

It's not what they are called it's how you say it