Posted by
suey267
13 yrs ago
Does anyone know where I can dispose of a desk top PC securely? Has been returned to factory settings.
Please support our advertisers:
I an not sure if I understand what you mean by securely but with my old PC I took the hard drives out and destroyed them with a hammer and screw driver. I then dumped all in the bin. Not very environmentally friendly but it did the job.
On the topic of environmentally friendly, I work in Kowloon Bay and there is a waste transfer station that has thousands upon thousands pieces of IT equipment around the shed which I assume is waiting for recycling. I go pass it every day and have never noticed any change in the piles of equipment except that they are getting bigger. I have not idea how they are collected but I don't think they have worked out what to do with them.
Please support our advertisers:
Ken A
13 yrs ago
The safest way is always to remove the hard drive and destroy it, although as Beermoney says the safest way isn't the most environmentally friendly way.
Another way would be to remove the old hard drive and put it into a new pc, then use software (I personally use Ccleaner which is free and has a drive wipe feature) to wipe the drive in a more secure way. Ccleaner, for example, gives you the option to overwrite 35 times. It is still possible for somebody who knows what they are doing to retrieve some data, but it does make it a lot harder.
Please support our advertisers:
jgl
13 yrs ago
Google DBAN.
Download it. Burn it to CD. Boot from CD. Choose any of 7 levels of data overwrite.
The short option will take a handful of hours. The longer options take multiple days.
Data retrieval by anything short of a government agency will be impractical.
Please support our advertisers:
You must be logged in to be able to reply.
Login now
Copy Link
Facebook
Gmail
Mail