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Advice: How to get rid of 2 old pc's safetly

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obsessednewbie
obsessednewbie Posts: 229 Forumite
Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
in Techie Stuff
Hi Advice needed please. I have 2 old Pc's kicking round taking up vital space. If i take out the hard drive, is it then safe to trash / take up the dump without any trace of my details on it? :confused: Not sure whether i had card details or anything else personal on them but just to make sure.

Are details stored elsewhere on the pc's??

Many Thanks in advance for any help.
x
J: SWELL Hair goodies, Cbeebies bag, Years supply of loo rolls. F: theatre tickets, Pedometer, Champagne Glasses, £100 Monsoon Voucher. Dr Dre Headphones, M: Organic Skincare, finger puppet, fridge magnet, stoker goody bag, dsi game, film goody bag, Cast iron casserole set, box cereal, Ipod Nano & DVD.
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Comments

  • Psychofly
    Psychofly Posts: 439 Forumite
    If you're worried take a hammer to the hard drives. Data could still be recovered but someone would need to desparately want your details in particular to go to all the bother and expense of retrieving the data.
  • BritBrat
    BritBrat Posts: 3,764 Forumite
    Put it on Freecycle without hardrives if you like.

    You could just format the hardrives or use dban.

    Darik's Boot and Nuke


    Better to recycle than just dump.
  • jarrod1
    jarrod1 Posts: 534 Forumite
    500 Posts
    once hard drives are out then it is safe, then just use hammer/magnets/fire or whatever to destroy the hard drives
  • obsessednewbie
    obsessednewbie Posts: 229 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Psychofly wrote: »
    If you're worried take a hammer to the hard drives. Data could still be recovered but someone would need to desparately want your details in particular to go to all the bother and expense of retrieving the data.


    Many Thanks. Was gonna keep the hard drives - for what reason i dont know, they are easier to store than 2 HUGE towers. Was just worried that some stuff might still be stored on motherboard? Thickie alert, thats me.

    Thanks again
    J: SWELL Hair goodies, Cbeebies bag, Years supply of loo rolls. F: theatre tickets, Pedometer, Champagne Glasses, £100 Monsoon Voucher. Dr Dre Headphones, M: Organic Skincare, finger puppet, fridge magnet, stoker goody bag, dsi game, film goody bag, Cast iron casserole set, box cereal, Ipod Nano & DVD.
  • obsessednewbie
    obsessednewbie Posts: 229 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    BritBrat wrote: »
    Put it on Freecycle without hardrives if you like.

    You could just format the hardrives or use dban.

    Darik's Boot and Nuke


    Better to recycle than just dump.

    Thanks, great minds think alike thats what i was gonna do, have a massive clearout of stuff ready to leave on front garden to freecycle at the weekend. Just wanted to ensure that once hard drive is gone so has all my data and it is not stored elsewhere, say motherboard?

    Many Thanks!
    J: SWELL Hair goodies, Cbeebies bag, Years supply of loo rolls. F: theatre tickets, Pedometer, Champagne Glasses, £100 Monsoon Voucher. Dr Dre Headphones, M: Organic Skincare, finger puppet, fridge magnet, stoker goody bag, dsi game, film goody bag, Cast iron casserole set, box cereal, Ipod Nano & DVD.
  • Psychofly
    Psychofly Posts: 439 Forumite
    The only PERMANENT storage on a PC is on the hard drive. Memory is only temporary storage.

    After turning off the power the only place where data will be stored and remembered is on the hard drive. Take that away and you're PC is completely "you" free :D

    No such thing as a thickie alert :p Computers are my job - I bet I wouldn't know the first thing about your job.
  • BritBrat
    BritBrat Posts: 3,764 Forumite
    If you are keeping the old drives buy 1 or two USB caddies to put them in and then you can use them as external storage.

    They don't cost very much.

    Examples not reccomendations:

    Dynamode Insixt USB Caddy For 3.5 Hard Drive USB 2.0

    Ebuyer Extra Value USB 2.0 5.25 Aluminium Silver Caddy & Uk Power Cable & Power Adapter & Fan
  • obsessednewbie
    obsessednewbie Posts: 229 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    BritBrat wrote: »
    If you are keeping the old drives buy 1 or two USB caddies to put them in and then you can use them as external storage.

    They don't cost very much.

    Examples not reccomendations:

    Dynamode Insixt USB Caddy For 3.5 Hard Drive USB 2.0

    Ebuyer Extra Value USB 2.0 5.25 Aluminium Silver Caddy & Uk Power Cable & Power Adapter & Fan

    Great idea!,gonna read up a bit more how to do that then i will.
    thanks
    J: SWELL Hair goodies, Cbeebies bag, Years supply of loo rolls. F: theatre tickets, Pedometer, Champagne Glasses, £100 Monsoon Voucher. Dr Dre Headphones, M: Organic Skincare, finger puppet, fridge magnet, stoker goody bag, dsi game, film goody bag, Cast iron casserole set, box cereal, Ipod Nano & DVD.
  • chaucer
    chaucer Posts: 261 Forumite
    I am in a similar position with regard to wanting to clean my data too...
    - just ordered new desktop, old one still working - ish and will probably give/sell to someone

    I want to make all the data disappear first and so will investigate DNAB - sounds just the thing ...

    One thing I am not sure of though - I have a 'Recovery' disc - is this the disc that will contain Windows and reinstall it on re-boot after wiping the HD?
    I do not have a disc that says clearly 'WINDOWS XP system disc' or similar on it.

    RE: this advice ...
    BritBrat wrote: »
    If you are keeping the old drives buy 1 or two USB caddies to put them in and then you can use them as external storage.

    I have two HDs in present desktop and before getting rid of it, thought it might make sense to take out the bigger of these (80gb - my back up HD)

    Are you saying that I could buy a fairly cheap piece of kit that would house my HD and connect it to my new PC via USB?
    If so, is this better than putting HD into new PC [new PC has 320 gb HD]

    About 65gb of the 80gb are used and I foresee new OS (Vista etc) requiring more space so don't think this HD will be sufficient backup on its own.

    I had envisaged buying a substantial external HD (100 - 200gb maybe) and transferring everything from old PC to that then using it as back-up)
    thanks for your help
  • planemad
    planemad Posts: 569 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    In my local paper there are a few ads asking for computer equipment that is needed for charity's and hospices ect.

    If I had no use for the hardrive I would keep it with the computer and do a few 10 pass full formats using a utility and give them to charity.
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