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How should I decommission my laptop?

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    How should I decommission my laptop?

    My aged Sony Vaio is to be imminently replaced by a shiny XPS13. It's given me six years of trouble free service, until this year when it started going decidedly wonky.

    So, dear denizens, how should I send off my once loyal and trusty workhorse?

    #2
    Originally posted by ladymuck View Post
    My aged Sony Vaio is to be imminently replaced by a shiny XPS13. It's given me six years of trouble free service, until this year when it started going decidedly wonky.

    So, dear denizens, how should I send off my once loyal and trusty workhorse?
    Treat it like a lover that you've worn out!

    Remove the hard disk.

    Drop the laptop from a tall building.

    Sashay nonchalantly away.
    Old Greg - In search of acceptance since Mar 2007. Hoping each leap will be his last.

    Comment


      #3
      If parts of it are still working, you could repurpose it as a digital picture frame, a server, or something else:

      Top 10 Ways to Repurpose Your Old Laptop

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by ladymuck View Post
        My aged Sony Vaio is to be imminently replaced by a shiny XPS13. It's given me six years of trouble free service, until this year when it started going decidedly wonky.

        So, dear denizens, how should I send off my once loyal and trusty workhorse?
        Remove the HDD* and flog it on Ebay. Someone will buy it for spares, and if it's the HDD that's wonky, one could potentially fit a new one and revive it. You should get about £50 for it, but more importantly it won't be going to landfill - yet.

        *Yes, I'm sure you are alone among the congregation in NOT having any porn on it, but you'd be surprised what can be retrieved from a HDD, even if it's been wiped. Take the disk out and put a hammer and chisel through it.
        His heart is in the right place - shame we can't say the same about his brain...

        Comment


          #5
          I wish I could find a post I made on another forum about the correct way to dispose of a laptop.

          It started when I first suggested wiping the drive of personal info then donating to a charity. I was castigated for this idea because charities only employ criminals, and those criminals get hold of the laptops and restore the data that you've securely wiped to find out all your bank details. They then rob you for every penny you have and send the money abroad to their families. The suggestion was that you should remove the hard drive and the memory chips (because they are memory and hold your bank details for all time), and then take it to the charity who should really give you a lot of money for your computer with no drive, no operating system, etc.

          So, a couple of us suggested safer and safer ways to dispose of it. I believe that towards the end we had:
          1. Grind up the RAM, mix it with pig food then send it to the largest pig farm in each continent.
          2. Take the hard drive out, fire a depleted uranium shell at it. Collect 1/4 of the fragments and place them on a strong magnet for a year. Take the rest, send some to Chernobyl, etc... then after that we started to get ridiculous with the ideas.
          …Maybe we ain’t that young anymore

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by WTFH View Post
            I wish I could find a post I made on another forum about the correct way to dispose of a laptop.

            It started when I first suggested wiping the drive of personal info then donating to a charity. I was castigated for this idea because charities only employ criminals, and those criminals get hold of the laptops and restore the data that you've securely wiped to find out all your bank details. They then rob you for every penny you have and send the money abroad to their families. The suggestion was that you should remove the hard drive and the memory chips (because they are memory and hold your bank details for all time), and then take it to the charity who should really give you a lot of money for your computer with no drive, no operating system, etc.

            So, a couple of us suggested safer and safer ways to dispose of it. I believe that towards the end we had:
            1. Grind up the RAM, mix it with pig food then send it to the largest pig farm in each continent.
            2. Take the hard drive out, fire a depleted uranium shell at it. Collect 1/4 of the fragments and place them on a strong magnet for a year. Take the rest, send some to Chernobyl, etc... then after that we started to get ridiculous with the ideas.
            ahahahahah, great suggestions

            Now seriously... I think people here are a bit too paranoiac... If you use a decent app to wipe out the HDD it's virtually impossible to recover anything, or chances are so slim that can be ignored.
            "The boy who cried Sheep"

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by CryingSheep View Post
              ahahahahah, great suggestions

              Now seriously... I think people here are a bit too paranoiac... If you use a decent app to wipe out the HDD it's virtually impossible to recover anything, or chances are so slim that can be ignored.
              Sadly you are SO VERY WRONG. I make occasional good money retrieving data from failed disks which won't even spin-up any more. Any app which can reformat a disk so it can't be read will cost you more than it's worth to just remove and destroy the disk.
              His heart is in the right place - shame we can't say the same about his brain...

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by CryingSheep View Post
                ahahahahah, great suggestions

                Now seriously... I think people here are a bit too paranoiac... If you use a decent app to wipe out the HDD it's virtually impossible to recover anything, or chances are so slim that can be ignored.

                CCleaner
                …Maybe we ain’t that young anymore

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Mordac View Post
                  Sadly you are SO VERY WRONG. I make occasional good money retrieving data from failed disks which won't even spin-up any more. Any app which can reformat a disk so it can't be read will cost you more than it's worth to just remove and destroy the disk.
                  Really!? Is that a real argument!? What a hard drive spinning or not has to do with securely wipe out the data!?

                  If you don't securely wipe out the data it can be recovered even from burn HDD or physically damaged HDD. If you do it properly, it can work like new that would be very, very, veryyyy difficult to recover anything meaningful...

                  You have free tools that will wipe out the data and overwrite the all hard drive 3, 5, 30 times (as many as you think will let you sleep at night). Let me know if you can recover anything after that! If you can maybe you could be doing VERY, VERY, VERYYYY GOOD money!
                  "The boy who cried Sheep"

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by CryingSheep View Post
                    Really!? Is that a real argument!? What a hard drive spinning or not has to do with securely wipe out the data!?

                    If you don't securely wipe out the data it can be recovered even from burn HDD or physically damaged HDD. If you do it properly, it can work like new that would be very, very, veryyyy difficult to recover anything meaningful...

                    You have free tools that will wipe out the data and overwrite the all hard drive 3, 5, 30 times (as many as you think will let you sleep at night). Let me know if you can recover anything after that! If you can maybe you could be doing VERY, VERY, VERYYYY GOOD money!
                    Oh dear.

                    There are a few people currently serving at her Majesty's Pleasure who would dearly wish that what you say is true.
                    Old Greg - In search of acceptance since Mar 2007. Hoping each leap will be his last.

                    Comment

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