Safely disposing of old laptops

Patchwork_Girl

Hi, I'm sure this will have been asked before but a quick search didn't help so I hope no-one minds me starting a thread. I have three old laptops I need to dispose of but I'm unsure how to do this safely. I can't really access them myself - one has no battery and I installed ubuntu on another when Windows stopped working but never really got to grips with it!

Is there an easy way to get rid of these without worrying about data security?

closed

asked all the time, and usually produces ott anwers

linux one - run dban

windows ones, factory restore, install ccleaner, tick wipe free space - (or run dban if you dont want to resell/reuse)

or if you're not selling them, take them out and keep them for backup devices (usb caddy)

DevCoder

Find out how to remove the hard drive (sometimes its just an access hatch on the underneath with a few scres to undo, sometimes you have to remove the actual underneath altogether).

Once hard drive out then destroy it however you wish, hammer, chop saw, run over it with your car (you can probably do the last two even with the hard drive in the laptop). Points are awarded for novel ideas.

If you cant do that but you can power it up then you cna look at creating a bootable DBAN disk which will securely erase the drive.

DevCoder

OTT methods are more fun though

closed

I'm sure there are plenty of things around a typical house to take out ones frustrations on with a hammer, why this question always elicits these responses is beyond me.

DevCoder

Because its a simple method that will almost certainly guarantee destruction physically rather than logically.

Non techie people can grasp physical destruction easier than logical, just like some techies go for a full gutterman pass rather than just a write zeros to all sectors because they think it's more secure.

Gutterman pass probably is more secure but as there havent been too many recoveries which would involve an electron microsocope then a write zeros would put the data beyond the reach of 99% of people.

mttylad

If it still works and your hapy to spend a little time, run dban on it to clear the data.

Then give them away on Freegle and someone can reuse them, what you consider an "old" laptop may well still run linux and act as an IRC server/bot etc for someone else.

Patchwork_Girl

Thank you all. I'm not sure they do still work, even to switch them on so not sure I can clear them that way. Tbh, I wondered if there was something simpler than taking out and smashing the hard drive, but that I can do

I don't think they'll be much use, though I might try freecycle, as the battery life is next to nothing and they are reeeally old! I was just going to take them to the local waste/recycling place but wanted to be sure thay were clear before I did.

Anyway, thank you all for the responses. I'll try to find some power cables and see if I can get them on, and try a hammer if that fails!

macman

There are lots of parts other than the drives and batteries than can be recyycled: screens, RAM chips, keyboards, etc.
You don't need to switch them on if you just remove the hard drives before disposing of the rest. You can then place the drive in a USB caddy and use it as a back up device.

AlecEiffel

The missus' old laptop had a myriad of issues (inc hdd) and when we stopped using it I took the hdd out, took the top panel off, and pulverised the platters. If it was still good for someone else I would just have dban'd it.

googler

Yet again, umpteen people want to pulverise what may be perfectly good drives.

Look on YouTube, google - there's plenty of visual guides on how to remove hard drives. Take the hard drives out and simply KEEP THEM. It's as easy as that.

You can put them into USB caddies, you can install them as secondary drives in desktops.....