recycling old computer ?

[eugene thomas]

I am going to recycle old computer. It not load up but has hard drive full of stuff. Is taking hard drive out enough?

[Charles Wiggins]

I am going to recycle old computer. It not load up but has hard drive full of stuff. Is taking hard drive out enough?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-recycle-your-old-computer/#!FSb50

[Curt Harms]

I have a couple thoughts. Is this machine new enough - 3-5 yrs. old - to be worth handing down to a school/church/nonprofit that could use it for teaching or for their daily usage? Or do you just want to take it to a recyling place? If you were going to consider 'handing it down', there are ways to wipe the hard drive that would require more skill to recover data than most people outside the 3 letter organizatins like NSA or FBI have available. Hint: formatting ain't it.

If you're just going to recycle it, either physically destroy the drive (large hammer, drill holes thorugh it) or buy an external enclosure and use it as a backup device. I"ve taken a few apart and salvaged the magnets from them. There are some pretty strong magnets in there. I'm pretty sure there's nothing of interest to anyone except on the hard drive.

[Eric DeSilva]

I tried to recycle some computer gear. Turns out a lot of charities are pretty picky--a lot of used computers out there. Mine was only 4 years old or so and running a current OS.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I usually just remove the harddrive and hang onto it; sometimes slapping it into the new computer or external drive. But if the HD isn't with the computer, it can't be scrubbed for data, so that's the easiest way avoid any problems. Of course, eventually you end up like me with a half dozen drives in a drawer somewhere. If you want to dispose of the drive, physically making it impossible (destroying or drilling through the platter) to recover is plenty. It's worth taking a look at what you've actually got on there, of course, don't want to lose anything! Modern hard drives, if you simply take them apart, (or sometimes even mess with the tension on screws holding them together!) you've basically made them useless to anyone without a cleanroom and some time and expertise. If you don't have some crazy secret government stuff or corporate secrets to be hiding from spies, that's usually enough to discourage the casual data-skimmer that would be interested in the kind of info normal folks have on their computers.



My local solid waste district recycles electronics for free; some states offer other types of programs. With the regulation in some states, you may be able to simply bring the electronics to certain retailers for collection. Before the changes to the state e-waste law changed, they often had special events with a small fee to round up things like electronics. (They also have similar events for tires, prescription drugs, household chemicals, etc.)


Looking at the Jackson County website, it sounds like they have an appliance/electronics round up happing in Black River falls tomorrow . . .

http://www.co.jackson.wi.us/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={A733E542-7E0A-47A2-BB87-F232F66198A4}

[Andrew Fleck]

Google DBAN. That program will wipe your hard drive permanently so you don't have to keep hanging on to all of those old hard drives. We donate our old computers and wipe the hard drive clean with DBAN first.

[eugene thomas]

I will just remove the hard drive. My work is doing community recycle thing so this 12 year old com needs to go.

[Shawn Pixley]

I run the e-waste program for my neighborhood. Assuming there is no residual value, recycle the heavy metals. What I do, is remove the hard drive after reformatting and wiping it. Drilll or spike the drive and smack it with a small sledge a couple times. Drop at county e-waste center.

i know a neighbor who collect circuit boards with the intention of reclaiming the gold and other precious metals in them. He is the last person I want to see playing around with nitric acid. Like watching the train heading for the cliff...

[Mike Circo]

1) Take out drive.
2) Put drive on floor.
3) Hit HARD with sledgehammer... Twice.
4) Throw it back in the case.
Done.

[ken masoumi]

1) Take out drive.
2) Put drive on floor.
3) Hit HARD with sledgehammer... Twice.
4) Throw it back in the case.
Done.
Unless Abby from NCIS gets her hands on it.:)

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have a couple thoughts. Is this machine new enough - 3-5 yrs. old - to be worth handing down to a school/church/nonprofit that could use it for teaching or for their daily usage?
If you really want to do a charity some good, sell the old computer and donate the cash to the charity.

Any possible savings a charity may see out of getting old computer equipment is quickly eaten up in labor costs trying to get that old outdated equipment to run their software & applications.

The only possible way it makes economic sense to the charity is when dozens of the exact same model are donated and they can use parts for one or two to make one "beefed up" machine.
Even then - there's the labor to contend with & again, it's better to just sell the old equipment and donate the cash.

Charity pricing on computers and software is extremely low. Pennies and fractions of pennies on the dollar.


While your heart and intensions are in the right place, the facts of life indicate it's not as good an idea as it sounds.

[Michael Koga]

Having obsessive-compulsive disorder, I take my drives apart. In fact, I usually take anything broken apart just to see how it's made. Small torx drivers are cheap, most screws on drives are T9 or smaller.

I take the neodymium magnets from the head mechanism and run it over the platters. Much faster than wipe programs. Then if I have urge to use power tools, I sand or grind off the magnetic coating. Doubt the 3LA (three letter acronym) agencies can recover anything. Nor alien archaeologists 100,000 years from now excavating our Silicon age. Not that I have anything to hide....:)

Years ago I had one that was easy to destroy. It had glass platters.