Is it worth selling a broken laptop and where should I sell it?

Ms_Chocaholic

I also have a broken laptop in the cupboard upstairs that is gathering dust and, having seen this, may well sell that too on Ebay - can anyone help me with instructions on how to remove the hard drive though?

Thanks

NotQuiteNorbert

My laptop's got a bit on the bottom of it that you unscrew to get access to the hard drive. That's all I know lol.. I get the other half to fix it if anything goes wrong! Not sure if all are the same.

NeilJung

trrk wrote: »

Thanks everyone! I will give it a go once I work out how to remove the hard drive.

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

can anyone help me with instructions on how to remove the hard drive though?

Assuming your machine won't turn on or POST at all, then you will have to remove the drive, but then you can use a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter and attach it as the only hard drive to another PC.

Once you have done, that there are several boot disks available that can securely overwrite your drives beyond any possibility of recovery even by forensic investigation. You can then sell your laptops complete with hard drive or sell the drive separately later once you get round to wiping it. Disconnect any other hard drives before using the boot disk or it will overwrite those too.


A simple one pass overwrite, or three pass if you want to feel better about it, straight from the boot disk will be more than ample. I recommend this one, Darick's Boot and Nuke;

http://www.dban.org/download

More than three passes is overkill unless the laptop used to belong to Gary Glitter, then go for the 35 pass Guttman.

EDIT: If you need to know how to remove the drive then look up your manual, or download the manual from the manufacturers site. It will probably be under a screw off plate on the bottom, but might not be.

SourChocolate

You may want to find out what is actually broken with this laptop since it may be something trivial/cheap and you will be giving it away virtually for free.

DaveAshton

melliott1963 wrote: »

I only ask because you must make sure that you acurately describe the laptop. Even if it doesn't work and is only being sold for spares, you may have a problem if you say it has a 12 inch screen when it's actually a 14 or 15 inch screen.

Not sure you got that the right way round. The actual screen size could only be the same or smaller than what was measured, not bigger. If the OP measured from corner to corner of the plastic surround, the size might be nearer 10", and if only "seeing" bit was measured, it's a 12". Simples

Anyway, good luck with the sale

philgee

Mine broke a month or so ago. I decided to break it and sell the spares individually as the sold prices varied wildly for complete laptops like my model. I've sold 5 parts so far for £50 in total and have a few more bits that I know are in full working condition which should hopefully make another £40 or so.

sequence

Oh I don't remove the HDD caddy from the laptop, it devalues it alot. If I had a pound for every person who feels it necessary to remove the caddy and the hard drive I'd be very very rich indeed.

SourChocolate

philgee wrote: »

Mine broke a month or so ago. I decided to break it and sell the spares individually as the sold prices varied wildly for complete laptops like my model. I've sold 5 parts so far for £50 in total and have a few more bits that I know are in full working condition which should hopefully make another £40 or so.

Wow - well done, especially taking into account you can buy new laptops from £200-£300 these days.

botanical

mrcol1000 wrote: »

I sold my tower PC on Ebay and put collection only. It was actually just the shell. All the good bits had been put in a new tower. Anyway guy offered to buy the tower but only wanted a few bits from it. Some wires and some kind of plastic caddy So paid for it and over the top postage for the bits. The rest of it I just dumped in the bin. So its worth giving it a go on Ebay as you never know what will sell.

what about recycling?