how to dispose of modem

hannahsmamma

have an ancient pc and want to get rid of it, I can take the monitor and modem to local re-cycle depot for free but how do I remove all the 'stuff' on it before disposal, eg don't want private stuff easily accessable to the re-cycling chaps, no state secrets involved !

agrinnall

So your question is not 'how to dispose of modem', but 'how to dispose of PC'?

Do what I do, remove the hard drive, take the rest for recycling, and stick the hard drive in a cupboard until you either decide on a suitable method of destroying it or so much time has passed that no information on it is of any use to anyone. [Mine are still in the cupboard!]

Darksun

http://www.dban.org/

There is pretty much no chance of anyone recovering data from a hard drive that has been erased with dban, no need to physically destroy the drive.

googler

agrinnall wrote: »

remove the hard drive, take the rest for recycling, and stick the hard drive in a cupboard until you either decide on a suitable method of destroying it or so much time has passed that no information on it is of any use to anyone.

Seconded, with the alternative of 'keep hard drive and install as secondary drive on new PC' or 'install hard drive in caddy and use as extra storage for new PC'

I don't subscribe to the 'destroy' mentality - it's wasteful to destroy a hard drive that you could keep and put to good use.

Ectophile

googler wrote: »

Seconded, with the alternative of 'keep hard drive and install as secondary drive on new PC' or 'install hard drive in caddy and use as extra storage for new PC'

I don't subscribe to the 'destroy' mentality - it's wasteful to destroy a hard drive that you could keep and put to good use.

That's assuming that the old drive is big enough to be worth the cost/effort. At some time, I'll need to get rid of my old PC. It has an 80GB hard disk. I don't think I'll be forking out for a drive caddy, just to re-use such a small disk.

googler

Ectophile wrote: »

That's assuming that the old drive is big enough to be worth the cost/effort. At some time, I'll need to get rid of my old PC. It has an 80GB hard disk. I don't think I'll be forking out for a drive caddy, just to re-use such a small disk.

So install it as a secondary in a desktop, then.

Store small files on it, rather than honkin' big HD videos.

I've got five drives in my desktop; three connected to the motherboard ports, another two to a PCI card interface.

Mr_Thrifty

Open bin, throw in bin.

You would have to recycle about 100000000000000000 modems to make up for one long haul flight. I personally won't bother recycling until cruises are banned.