old computers

Bill16

Senior Member
Hey, does it pay to hold onto older computers with the ideas of overhauling them to bring them up to new standards? I have three of my wife's computers, but as they sit they are likely too out of date to fit my needs. So should I leave them or take them with me in hopes of fixing one of them up, buying new monitors and any other extras needed?
 

wev

Senior Member
Contributor
If more than a year and a half old, no; use them as they are, give them away, or recycle them.
 

nickt

Senior Member
Usually not worth keeping, especially if its an off-the-shelf computer or a laptop. If they were originally running less than windows 7 (xp, vista, ME, etc), good chance they will choke on Windows 7 or better if you upgrade.
 

RobV

Senior Member
I keep my old XP box laying around for the occasional flash to the past that won't run on my (yuck) 10 (64 bit) machine - Wolfenstein 3D.
I know it is terribly violent, but I didn't play it until I was an adult, and my brain was fully formed - more or less. :)

But I built it to "last", with a 500gb hard drive, 2gb of memory (two more empty slots) and a dual-core processor (NBD these days).

I'm just telling my story. You have gotten good advice already. Find a good program for wiping the hard drives. I don't know how good reformatting does. If T.V. dramas are any indicator, pesky hackers can get through almost anything, short of removing the platters and running them through a shredder.
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Best wiping program for a hard drive is remove it and use this,several times :D you need it to be in at least 6 pieces

resin_sledge_hammer.jpg
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Best wiping program for a hard drive is remove it and use this,several times :D you need it to be in at least 6 pieces

View attachment 207951
Yep, when I worked for the government, that was the accepted method for taking care of harddrives. Drill holes in them, tear them up, smash them, cutting torch were all acceptable to the government before we got rid of a computer. Oh and that was after we ran a "clean sweep" software. Ha!
 

Karmann_65

Senior Member
I was going to say the same thing. When I'm getting rid of a computer I always pull and destroy the hard drive after removing whatever ever files I wish to keep...................porn included!

And nobody has mentioned the feel good factor involved when using a "high density adjusting tool" on an old computer. ;)

Personally I'd pull the old hard drive (if it's a decent size) and mount it in a cheap USB caddy as back up (away from PC) storage for anything important.

If it's no longer required then feel free to vent your frustrations with the aforementioned "adjuster". :biggrin-new:
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
When disposing of an old hard drive I use a program called DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke). It's free and, assuming you can burn a CD or DVD, it's easy to use. You boot with the CD/DVD in the drive, enter "autonuke" at the prompt then sit back and let DBAN do its thing; which is irrevocably wipe the hard drive from the ground up.

If you want it, google "boot and nuke" and it'll pop right up; I'm too tired right now to provide a link.
 
Top