Ancient laptops

ChilliBob

Hey everyone,
As part of our decluttering for moving I've dragged two ancient laptops out of the loft. The first, is a Windows XP machine with a 1.4ghz Celeron and 1.12 gb of ram   surprisingly for something sat in the loft in a box it booted fine and we've nabbed some pics of it. 
The other one is a slightly newer Win7 machine, but still old.

It seems these are too old for recycling and getting use elsewhere? - If that is the case, what's the best way to dispose of these?

Also, I vaguely remember some free programme years ago which did proper deletes, something like being able to delete to X standard, (depending on how many passes you did etc). What's the best way to wipe these? - I really don't want to resort to popping them open and whacking the hdd with a sledge hammer

Cheers!

Carrot007

Take em to the tip if no one wants them. They have a secure bin for them these days.

Of copurse delete stuff first, IF THERE REALLY IS ANYTHING SENSITIVE ON THERE. most things for a laptop that old will be of no issue.

As for programs (programmes are on tv). yes there were several but nothing (I REPEAT), nothing has ever been recovered from a proper 1 pass full format. Yes it could be but if would take 1000s of years. These things just play on peoples paranoia. (other people will ba along soon to suggest you nuke the drive from orbit or something).

ChilliBob

Cheers, yeah I remember being sceptical of this whole 'military grade' stuff from about 15 years back and multiple passes to delete etc. Seems the sledge hammer approach might be quicker, and possibly more fun. 

J_B

We had a roundup here in early Covid days and gave them all to CRC Recycling from Stoke

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=crc+recycling

 ... although their website isn't working at the moment, so not sure if they are still trading.

ChilliBob

Cheers, I had a little look but couldn't see much near me like that. 

esuhl

Also, I vaguely remember some free programme years ago which did proper deletes, something like being able to delete to X standard, (depending on how many passes you did etc). What's the best way to wipe these? - I really don't want to resort to popping them open and whacking the hdd with a sledge hammer

That sounds like DBAN -- Darik's Boot and Nuke. In the old days, it was a simple ISO image you could boot to wipe mechanical hard drives. https://dban.org/

forgotmyname

XP laptop is ancient?  Wonder what I should call the laptops that I have. These were made just after they stopped
using hieroglyphs. 

pbartlett

You could always try to Cel-'er-on eBay?

ChilliBob

forgotmyname said:

XP laptop is ancient?  Wonder what I should call the laptops that I have. These were made just after they stopped
using hieroglyphs. 

Yeah I know what you mean. Tbh the xp laptop works, I see no reason why a child couldn't use it. Yes, a better experience would be had with a snazzier newer one, but if its this or nothing then this is streaks ahead. Sadly digital charities seem to disagree! 

Laz123

Or you could donate to a charity. There's one called WeeeCharity which will pick up from you and wipe the drives for free.

getmore4less

Our local freecycle has a few people that take any old kit even not working.
They pass on the ones they get working as a hobby by the looks of it.