Disposing of(selling?) broken laptop?

omgaechylus

(apologies if this is the wrong place for this thread!)
I've been looking for a place to recycle my old laptop (10+ year old Sony Viao - no longer switches on at all) and trying to find somewhere cheap as possible - I've seen a lot of places offering to buy laptops but doubt I'd get anything for this!

Don't want to just throw it away because I'm not sure what's on the hard drive. Don't know enough to take out the bits that are important....
Would prefer to give it to somewhere that can wipe it safely for me - any recommendations ?

dipsomaniac

hard drive will be really easy to remove with just a screwdriver if you are worried about the contents. download the service manual for your particular model and follow instructions.

you may be able to get a couple of £'s for the display/keyboard on ebay but may be more trouble than its worth due to p&p costs

EveryWhere

omgaechylus wrote: »

(apologies if this is the wrong place for this thread!)
I've been looking for a place to recycle my old laptop (10+ year old Sony Viao - no longer switches on at all) and trying to find somewhere cheap as possible - I've seen a lot of places offering to buy laptops but doubt I'd get anything for this!

Don't want to just throw it away because I'm not sure what's on the hard drive. Don't know enough to take out the bits that are important....
Would prefer to give it to somewhere that can wipe it safely for me - any recommendations ?

Very easy to remove HDD. That's the bit that stores all your info. Then you can put it in a external casing, costing around £4 and keep it as a portable hard drive.
The laptop you can put on Freecycle. Perhaps someone can fix it, if it's worth it to them.
What's the model number?

googler

omgaechylus wrote: »

Don't want to just throw it away because I'm not sure what's on the hard drive. Don't know enough to take out the bits that are important....

If you can turn a small screwdriver, you can remove the hard drive and keep it. It's not rocket science. It's so basic, once you've done it, you'll probably be embarrassed that you said here that you couldn't ....

Look on YouTube for an instructional video for the make and model.

Look on the internut generally for a user manual, which may have instructions for same.

Then put it on eBay, Gumtree or the like as "spares or repair" and make it clear there's no HDD

omgaechylus

EveryWhere wrote: »

Very easy to remove HDD. That's the bit that stores all your info. Then you can put it in a external casing, costing around £4 and keep it as a portable hard drive.
The laptop you can put on Freecycle. Perhaps someone can fix it, if it's worth it to them.
What's the model number?

No idea. It's pretty old. It was running Windows Vista and the screen stopped working properly some time before I finally gave up (kept flashing red and green - I'd just got a new job and repair place said new laptop would be cheaper than fixing all the things that were wrong at the time!)

Will attempt removing HDD myself. Despite being halfway through a PhD, I might end up crying/hurting someone by mistake/burning the house down. I *will* be telling the authorities a stranger on the internet advised me to do so!

EveryWhere

omgaechylus wrote: »

No idea. It's pretty old. It was running Windows Vista and the screen stopped working properly some time before I finally gave up (kept flashing red and green - I'd just got a new job and repair place said new laptop would be cheaper than fixing all the things that were wrong at the time!)

Will attempt removing HDD myself. Despite being halfway through a PhD, I might end up crying/hurting someone by mistake/burning the house down. I *will* be telling the authorities a stranger on the internet advised me to do so!

PhD? But you can't look at the underside of a laptop in order to ascertain the model number?
I'm joking. You'll likely find the model number around the bezel of the screen. Take a closer look.

Just remember to unplug from the mains electricity and to remove the battery and you'll be fine. You'll be done in five to ten minutes, as there will likely be a specific hatch for access to the HDD. We can't advise more until you tell the model number.