Best way to dispose of old laptops - recycle or sell ?

boblibarn

Hi we have 2 old laptops and not sure of the best way of disposing of them, I would like to ensure they are as clear as possible of any of our own information ?

googler

Take the hard drives out and keep them.

Knarf44

As googler said, remove the hard drives, then you can either offer them to a local independent computer repair business to use for spare parts or take them to your local council's tip where they will have a section for old computer hardware.

prowla

You can offer the laptops on freecycle/freegle; someone will surely be happy to take them off your hands.

When you take the hard drives out, it would be a really good idea to remove them from their caddies so you just have the bare drive, and include the caddy and screws with the corresponding laptop, so that the person can add in their drive.

NiftyDigits

Knarf44 wrote: »

As googler said, remove the hard drives, then you can either offer them to a local independent computer repair business to use for spare parts or take them to your local council's tip where they will have a section for old computer hardware.

That's quite a limited choice.

They can also sell them online. If they are in working order it may be be worthwhile for a buyer to purchase a new HDD and to reinstall the OS.

bluesnake

Leave the hard disk in. Run dban through them, then install linux Mint, then if you do not want the cash, give them away - excellent for kids and oap's this Xmas

closed

Delete your data/account
factory restore them
install ccleaner, tick wipe free space box and run it
Sell, you'll get more for them with windows and an intact restore partition.

if you want confirmation no data is recoverable, run recuva in deep scan mode.

JohnPeri

As other advised I would keep hard drives. The rest could be sold on the ebay or in a local place.

danbim

thanks everyone is it easy to remove a hard drive , and then what do I do with it ?

bluesnake

danbim wrote: »

thanks everyone is it easy to remove a hard drive , and then what do I do with it ?

buy a usb caddy and use the drives for extra copies of family films and photos etc. Or as spares when the current one breaks

mttylad

AFAIK there is a utility called DBAN that will wipe all information from the hard drive to US government standards etc so it is unrecoverable.

Then you can dispose of them by selling or giving away by your chosen method. Keeping the HDD can make it so that people will be less likely to purchase an old laptop as a new hdd can cost more than the laptop.