# Disposal of old desktops and laptops



## AndyA4TDI (May 7, 2012)

I have 3 old ones, everything important backed up to external drive. Firstly, I don't believe in factory resets as not convinced all data is deleted, simple hidden deep until overwritten. All 3 at least 8 years old. Yes, I take ID theft seriously, lol

I have removed all the hard drives and memory cards, hard drives opened and disc inside smashed into tiny pieces, memory cards all chopped up, I have checked disc drawer etc for discs/ memory cards and finally taken a hammer to the boards. 

I take it they are now safe to take to the dump?

Thanks


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## Cookeh (Apr 27, 2017)

Better to donate or recycle them. Lots of charities,or small companies, or even hostels or foreign schools can make use of them, HDD or no.

You can even recycle them locally if you choose. Old PCs make great local storage servers or great HTPCs. You can use them to monitor home security cameras too.

Assuming by board you don't mean the motherboard that is. If you did smash the motherboard, that was entirely pointless as they don't store data. They've also made them unusable for anyone or anything.


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## Caledoniandream (Oct 9, 2009)

I take the hard disc drive out, and the memory.
Than hand them in a recycling centre.
They can maybe use the motherboard or the power feed.


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## mar00 (Jun 24, 2018)

at 8 years old they are no uses as a PC,especialy without drives and RAM, most charites and groups don't want them as they have to be safe to use, so need electrical test and secure data wipe, 

without drives they are safe to take to recycling center most have a dedicated area now, 

tip for old laptop drives, slam them flat on a hard surface, most are glass and will shatter


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## GleemSpray (Jan 26, 2014)

i make old HDD's useless by unscrewing lid and removing the super powerfull rare earth magnets from the actuator spindle - they are v usefull for pinning stuff to metal surfaces + the drive is now useless... unless a scavenger could be bothered removing the disc platters and remounting them on a disc spindle (v time consuming and fiddly) or fitting suitable replacement rare earth magnets (equally unlikely).

You can smash the platters for good measure once the lid is off, if you want.

Otherwise, there is plenty of software which will securely wipe drives, but its a slow process.


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## GleemSpray (Jan 26, 2014)

Forgot to add, this is the software i use a lot at work for sorting out dodgy drive partitions and it has the ability to securely wipe and overwrite partitions or whole disks so they can never be recovered.

https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html


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## Cookeh (Apr 27, 2017)

mar00 said:


> at 8 years old they are no uses as a PC


That's just not true. No use for 1440p gaming or video editing, but perfectly functional for a plethora of other uses.


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## Albert Holbet (Feb 3, 2020)

I think it is necessary to permanently delete unused things and wiper computer,as you can not predict what will happen after the data is stolen.You can even sell them.


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## Nidge76 (Sep 16, 2016)

mar00 said:


> at 8 years old they are no uses as a PC


We could use them at work it would be an upgrade for us!

Sent from my moto e(6) plus using Tapatalk


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## RandomlySet (Jul 10, 2007)

I've replaced almost 100 PCs at work over the past 12 months... All the old HDDs get removed, and then I save them. When I want some stress relief, I take them outside and smash the crap out of them with a hammer just to be sure :lol:

TBH though, staff are advised not to save to their PC, as anything important should be stored on the network as it's backed up several times each day and therefore recoverable.


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## vsideboy (Sep 1, 2006)

Just remove the hard drive and recycle the rest.


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## AndyN01 (Feb 16, 2016)

AndyA4TDI said:


> ........ All 3 at least 8 years old......./QUOTE]
> 
> I'm typing this on a 9 year old machine which is still using it's original hard drive.
> 
> ...


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## mar00 (Jun 24, 2018)

Cookeh said:


> That's just not true. No use for 1440p gaming or video editing, but perfectly functional for a plethora of other uses.


if you have a couple and a plank you could make a coffe table,

they are not viable to recomison as a PC, cost isn't worth it, even as a refurbisher, at 8 years that would probably be a series 2 intel or maybe a pentium, just the cost to add OS, hard drive and RAM is more than the value of machine,

we have about a hundred a year to recycle and pass most to local people at cost of parts as we put SSD drives in them, but we aim to have a life of 3 years in them so nothing pre series 5 intel, we have a Microsoft refurbisher licence too as when you don't have the original hard drive you can't use the original OEM licence,

but obviously there are companies sticking them on ebay with not of that ,


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## minotaur uk (Dec 13, 2018)

i have to dispose of PC's on a regular basis, I use miltary grade software to wipe the HD's then give them to charity.


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