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

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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 ?
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  • googler
    googler Posts: 16,103 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Take the hard drives out and keep them.
  • Knarf44
    Knarf44 Posts: 557 Forumite
    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
    prowla Posts: 13,984 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    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
    NiftyDigits Posts: 10,459 Forumite
    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
    bluesnake Posts: 1,460 Forumite
    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
    closed Posts: 10,886 Forumite
    edited 10 November 2013 at 2:50PM
    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.
    !!
    > . !!!! ----> .
  • As other advised I would keep hard drives. The rest could be sold on the ebay or in a local place.
  • danbim
    danbim Posts: 161 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary Combo Breaker
    thanks everyone is it easy to remove a hard drive , and then what do I do with it ?
  • bluesnake
    bluesnake Posts: 1,460 Forumite
    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
    mttylad Posts: 1,519 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    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.
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