Disposal of old PC

Can anyone out there tell me the best way of getting rid of an old unwanted PC.We bought a new up to date PC September 2005 and have never done anything with our old Packard Bell PC.

I heard on the radio that there are companies that take the old ones for recycling but they charge quiet a bit for doing it.Someone where we used to live burnt theirs to get rid of it,but we don't want to go down that route for obvious reasons.

I have also heard it is better to smash up the hard drive so that no information can be got off of it if it fell into the wrong hands.

Any help would be most appreciated.Yours in anticipaton...Thankyou

 

Sadly, I think that there is not much that you can do. I have disposed of a number of old machines - it always hurts. I used to keep them for a while as a backup or to canibalise - but as all the parts advance together an old Hard drive or old CD drive is of little use these days.

You used to be able to give old things to kids - but they would want a new one these days.

You could put a hammer through the hard drive - but as long as you don't keep bomb making information or banking passwords on the drive - is there really much of value to anyone else? I doubt if anyone would bother to go through it. I would wipe (reformat or delete) it clean as a precaution. Its not a guarantee - but someone would have to go to a lot of trouble to reserect any data.

I took mine to the council tip, which is now privately run. They will accept it, and at intervals they sell off anything with residual value.

 

Hi PeterS,Thankyou for your advice.I think we will take it to the local Council tip and let them find a new home for it.

We have got some details on the hard drive when we did Internet Banking so there could be some info on the hard drive.It was only what people were being told to do by the presenters on our local radio station when they had an article about what to do with old PC's.We certainly haven't got any bomb making information on ours.

I will have a word with Mr K to see if he has deleted the stuff and see what he says.

Many thanks for your advice

 

Kandy if you are happy there is nothing on the hard drive then put it on freecycle, this is an internet site where you can post unwanted goods, people then email you and you decide who to give it too. The items are free but you might do a good turn to someone who really needs a computer.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ketteringUKfreecycle/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Northampton_East_Freecycle/

[ 21. July 2007, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: Diziblonde ]

 

i would phone the local school there might be
some little kid that could have some practice

 

I spoke to the our computer group pro. last week about clearing the hard disk. His reply was to use a partitioning software (if the disk is partitioned) and delete the partitions. It makes the previous data unreadable.

Of course, it will also destroy the existing OS so unless you have the OS disks it will need a new OS.