junking old computer

[Roop-Dogg]

i've had an old computer/moniter/keyboard in the basement for several years because i did not want to pay the disposal fee to get rid of it.

now, our local landfill will take them free of charge, so its time to part with it.

my question is this: what do i need to take out of it to protect myself? i have removed the hard drive but i do not know if that is sufficient or are there other componants that should removed also??

thanks for your help.

[walleyewild]

Hard drive is where everything is stored so there shouldn't be an issue with disposing of the rest.

[The_Lee]

Just remove and destroy the hard drive and you will be all good.

[Roop-Dogg]

thanks guys.

whats the best/most efficient way to destroy the hard drive??

[delcecchi]

Sledge hammer. Or burn in campfire. Sledge being most ecologically friendly. Depends to some degree on how sensitive the data is. Would someone spend thousands or tens of thousands to read it? then go with the fire. Else reduce it to bent pieces with the hammer.

Then the hazardous waste disposal site.

[LMITOUT]

ditto on the 20# sledge. Either that or a strong magnet, but the sledge would be much more fun.

[Sandmannd]

You don't really have to go to that extreme. You can also download problems that write zero's to the hard drive. We do that at work and you run the program three times. There are ways to get the info back, but as said before, is your info worth thousands for someone to get off of there? If you're going to burn or sledge, I would go with sledge and then take it in with the PC.

[Tom7227]

Why toast the hard drive? Get a case for it and use it as an external backup device. Burning it seems like a really bad idea cause of the junk you'll put up into the air.

About 15 years ago I brought one home from work and gave it to my 10 year old son along with a screwdriver. He took it apart and then put it back together again. He did that a bunch of times and ended up being able to do it in about 2 minutes. He just got his Ee is December and landed a job at $57K. Maybe you can start one of your kids on the same path - let the kid screw around with the old rig, can't wreck anything can they?

[Whoaru99]

Unless you have some very personal stuff on there I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just formatting the drive will discourage 99.9% of people from trying to recover data from it.

Although, if you are worried, the disk wiping programs are a good way to go.

[wx_nut]

The best way to make sure the drive has no personal data on it is to do this:

Take your drill, drill 20+ holes in the drive. Take your jigsaw and cut it in half - put one half out with current 'drop' and then the second time you run up there, take the next half.

Good luck, and HTH.

[beer batter]

I'm with Tom7227, why not use it as a backup? Reformat that bad boy and store pictures or other critical backup data on it. One can never have enough backup storage, and its not like they take up a lot of space.