Finding a Home for Old Computers

washingtonpost.com ^ | Sunday, January 2, 2005 | Mike Musgrove

[crushelits]

If getting rid of clutter happens to be one of your New Year's resolutions, nothing will clear up a few cubic feet of space like getting an old computer, monitor or printer out the door.

In most cases, selling that antique hardware to a friend, co-worker or eBay user won't be an option computers lose their value faster than almost any other manufactured product in history. Just tossing them in the trash isn't a good idea either: Most computing gear contains such toxic components as lead, mercury and cadmium.

Instead, your options probably fall into the same two categories as a lot of other household junk: recycling or disposal.

The simplest choice is one of the computer-recycling programs that many PC vendors run. Gateway (www.gateway.tradeups.com), Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com/recycle) and Dell (www.dell.com/recycle) all accept defunct computers regardless of brand. Just fill out an online form, pay a processing fee (usually $15 to $35) and pack up the old equipment. A shipper will show up at your door a few days later to whisk it away. In some cases, you can get a rebate toward the purchase of a new machine.

Equipment taken in through such recycling programs will be shipped to facilities built for breaking computers back down to their basic elements. Plastic, glass, steel, aluminum, copper, gold and silver -- all found inside desktops and laptops -- can be recovered and reused; the toxic leftovers will be safely disposed of.

[MississippiMan]

Sledgehammer. 10 times. No information can be recovered.

Probably true, but not guaranteed. The military has a crack digital forensics operation, run by the Air Force IIRC, though it does work for all the branches. Anyway, the authorities went to a guy's house to question him about his wife's murder. He decided to get cute with them and grabbed a big pair of scissors and cut a floppy diskette into 23 pieces then handed it to them. The forensic guys put it back together and got enough data from it to convict the jerk. :-)

MM

[MississippiMan]

Here you go, Finch:

DSO Exploit Cure

MM

[general_re]

I guess they preferred replacement rather than repair, eh? ;)

[1_Inch_Group]

But how to wipe the hard drive clean?

1/4" Metal Bit in a drill

10-800 holes thru the disk case

buy a new disk for 30 bucks

[MarkL]

Out of curiosity, how do you recover data from a reformatted drive?

First off, it depends on what sort of "format" you're talking about... If you're talking about a DOS "format," that's the equivalent of taking a book and ripping out the table of contents. It's relatively easy to reconstruct the data with a number of different software packages.

If you're talking about a Windows format, or some other disk wiping packages that write the same data to every disk block (like zeroing it out), there is filter software that will allow you to read the latent magnetic signature (though this usually needs to be done by disasembling the drive. Most data recovery houses are capable of doing this. If random data is repeatedly written to every block of the drive, it's nearly impossible to recover the data, but I've heard that at Ft. Meade, they have the tools to do it (at least sometimes).

Mark

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Hey, thanks!!!

[JoeSixPack1]

Best use for an old case I've ever seen!!! :-)

[MarkL]

I over heard a friend talking to his elderly mother after Church recently. She was concerned that her comp. might get a virus. he told her it wasn't possible because it wasn't online and she's the only one that's on it. She said, oh no, your father uses it too.

I kid you not... When my grandmother heard that my father had gotten bronchitus, she thought that he might have caught a "computer virus!" Really, I'm seriuos!

Mark

[MississippiMan]

Welcome, Finch.

MM

[1066AD]

Agreed, new drives aren't expensive these days either.

[BobS]

"I take the hard drive out & smash it with a BIG hammer."

Why do you expend such energy? Use a little screwdriver, add those screws to your collection, rip out the stylus and expose the platter to a magnet. Unless you need an R.M.A.; in that case just destroy the partitions.

Use your strength elsewhere and wisely. I have a $300 HD that I just replaced. It has 80 pins and (used to do) 15K RPM. It doesn't even turn. It's dead.

R.I.P.

[CurlyDave]

Why do you expend such energy?

The kids enjoy it.

The range I go to has a "tin can" range. I may see what a .308 in the gizzard does for one someday.

[fire_eye]

If "They" want it badly enough (as in, you are Osama bin Goatraper's buttboy and they grabbed your disk with what may be his home address on it), they will use an electron microscope to examine the residual magnetism from previous what-will-probably-turn-out-to-be-Great-Satan-Porno-downloads, to reconstruct your Sacred Islamic Data.

Trust me on that one...

[fire_eye]

Maybe I should call one of those places... my wife is threatening to start an organization called WASTE - "Wives Against Surplus Trash Electronics", and post a picture of my "office" on her website.

[Capitalism2003]

This program will wipe your hard drive many times...destroying everythign on it. Same technology used by the department of defense.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Open the case, remove the platters, and then destroy the platters (microwave, fireplace, incinerator... it's all good) Do not assume that a pair of scissors will work.

[investigateworld]

Thanks for the info and laughs!

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Lots of great info on this thread. Thanks! Making it worth a bookmark ;-).

[MississippiMan]

Welcome, Face. :-)

MM

[bitt]

lol!