Old computer, just bin it?

Eric

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My dad has had a clear out and got a new laptop for the kids grandkids when they stop over.

One of the computers I brought home to pull the hard drive out and the other to check there was no HD in it.. That's all done now, so the question is, are they recyclable or just trash. When I say old, one has a Pentium II cpu with MMX technology!! The other is AMD, no clue on speed though. It's old I know that.

I don't think a charity would be any use as they would have to put a HDD in etc.

Thanks
 
If you have a child you could show them how to take it apart and what the parts they might learn from it and take a interest?
 
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I don't, daughter who is an Apple fan girl! Actually, that gives me a thought of if someone on here wants to come and get them, they are welcome. Both booted last time I tried and one was in use up until a few weeks ago!
 
Take it to your local council's recycling place. There should be a special bin/box for computers and other small electronic devices.

Alternatively, you could do what someone did near my last place of work and throw it in a hedge.
 
Your phone is probably more powerful, I'd ditch it.
 
Out of interest as it ever been used for banking or anything private? It is possible to recover data from hard drives even after formatting. If I was a dodgy character I could buy it for a few quid, go through the hard drive and read through all the old documents on there. I'd take a hammer to an old hard drive.
 
Hard drives are out. Just all other bits.
 
Was thinking the same this morning, need to dump a 12 year old desktop but thought I better stick a hose over it first
 
Was thinking the same this morning, need to dump a 12 year old desktop but thought I better stick a hose over it first

Microwave the hard drives
 
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I know in your case you took the hard drives out but it is a absolute must. Most of the ones taken to tips end up in 'tech mountains' in Africa where they are vulnerable to data theft and associated troubles.

I watched a Dispatches or Parnorma about it, they put trackers in them all and left data on the disks to see what the results were, it was quite the eye opener.
 
The magnets in old hard drives are surprisingly useful. I managed to drop a blade for a double-edged razor down the sink and managed to fish it out with a hard drive magnet on the end of a screwdriver. It's quite interesting to take them apart properly; I ended up scoring the platters with a Stanley knife and smashing up the circuit boards.
 
Same here.
 
Typo or are there really 5 generations of you?:eek::smashin:
(Your Dad, you, your kids, the kids kid, the kids grandkids)

There should probably have been a comma or a / in there.

eg kids/grandkids
 
Agreed, that's the way it really happens.
 
No, they are discouraged continuously.
Particularly with statements like that.
 
I prefer to use a hammer, good fun as well.

Recommended option for this is to power drill the drives. With a hammer, it's possible just to break the drive open and platters can come out still intact which can still have data recovered from them.

If you drill the drives out, the holes in the platers throw the platter balance out. They will never spin evenly and when spun up to 5000+ rpm will vibrate so much, they will tear apart any new drive housing they are placed in.
 
Or you could do a full wipe.
 
Or you could do a full wipe.

In an old PC, this means powering it up which might not be possible which then means moving the drives to a working PC. This plus the actual wipe takes time. Drilling out the drives takes seconds and you can stack drives and drill out a batch in one go. Far more efficient.
 
Or you could do a full wipe.
Probably means third party software and besides it is an old drive. Would you trust an old drive with your data in future?
 

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