There's nothing quite as frustrating as breaking a valuable possession, especially when it holds your address book, calendar and probably a lot more. I'm talking about personal digital assistants, or PDAs for short.

Break the screen of your Palm Pilot, Pocket PC or smart phone, and the gadget's pretty much useless until it's fixed. Such breakage used to mean contacting the manufacturer to find out whether the screen is covered under warranty (most are not), packing it up, shipping it off and waiting for the fix and return shipment. It could take a week or longer to get your trusted handheld back.

That was then.

Next time your PDA needs to be repaired or your iPod needs a new battery, try doing it yourself, with the help of PDAParts.com. Even technophobes should be able to order the correct replacement parts and tools, and follow the simple instructions to get your device working and looking like new.

Company founder and President Robby Stanley said he provided nearly 31,000 replacement parts for PDAs in 2004. About 90 percent of the parts he ships to do-it-yourselfers are screens.

"If I'm able in three days to send you the part, you can have it installed in 20 minutes," he said. "You saved yourself two or three days or more."

In addition to saving time, customers save about half the cost of sending the unit to a manufacturer for repair, Stanley said. Replacement screens prices range from $25 to about $100. He said customers can choose to send their broken PDA to his company for repair, with the average cost of $20 in labor plus parts and shipping costs.

The Web site has instructions for repairing more than 50 different PDA models. Some have video instructions in addition to still photos.

I tested the product with the help of a friend. My old Treo 600 smart phone had developed a bright spot in the screen and needed replacing. The entire repair took less than 20 minutes, with about half the time spent trying to remove the back cover from the unit. The site sells a universal PDA back-opening tool for $10, along with a pair of specialized L-shaped screwdrivers to remove the tiny screws.

We removed four screws from the back of the Treo 600; pried open the cover with the help of the tool; removed two screws holding the motherboard to the case; disconnected the battery connector and the ribbon connector from the motherboard to the screen. The new screen snapped easily into place.

Reassembly took only a couple of minutes, and after charging the battery, the Treo was nearly as good as new.

Stanley, a former Apple and Hewlett-Packard employee, said he started his Web site in 1998 as an information source for fixing PDAs. After getting requests from people wanting parts, he started buying broken devices on eBay and from stores closing out discontinued models.