[Technology] Computer disposal question

[A mex eyecan]

was also told soak them in bleach or something like alloy wheel cleaning acid

 

[Brian Munich]

Before you do anything, ask yourself whether or not you have any bitcoin on them.

It might save you in the future having to buy from the council the tip you took it to in a vain attempt to retrieve it.

We were talking about that bloke at work the other day. We worked out that even in 2013, when his missus binned the drive, that his BTC would’ve already been worth about 500K. Hard to fathom thay his only access to such a large amount of cash was completely dependent on a private key stored on a single hard drive and that he’d not backed it up on some sort of diverse storage. I think twice about having more than 85K in a single bank.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Best to take a hammer to the hard drive imho. Wiping the drive won’t work, the police are quite sophisticated these days and are still be able to find the photos ever after you think you’ve deleted them.

Half true - just doing a format simply removes the "index" of all the files that were on the disk - the file data is still there in magnetic form and there is software that can recover these orphaned files.

The secure way to decommission a disk is to write over the entire surface (I don't mean with a pen) with new data, at least three times - can take a while, depending on the capacity of the disk. But doing this means whatever data was on the disk hasn't been deleted its been over-written and this cannot be recovered.

Lob it on the log-burner or put it through an MRI scanner will also likely render it n/s

 

[Cotton Socks]

Check for photos, vids etc. Hammer to the laptop, open the cases of any towers & you'll see the hard drive. Hammer to the hard drive. Someone I know has a hard drive with bitcoin on it purchased years ago when it 1st came out, he has no idea what the password is though (f**king muppet)!!!!!

 

[mile oak]

Hit them very hard with a very large hammer several times until they break. And then dispose of the body parts separately.

Also recomended for cut up credit cards along with permanant marker pen scribbled over them

 

[Justice]

Hit them very hard with a very large hammer several times until they break. And then dispose of the body parts separately.

I know we hate Palace fans but isn’t this taking things a bit far

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

To protect yourself, the hard drives should be destroyed. Ask around - you probably have a friend who can do it. Don't just wipe the drives (data can still be recovered). Remove the drives and smash them with a hammer.

Yep. I have done that with one and will have to do that with others.

 

[jackanada]

Install Linux on them and watch them perform quicker than your current Windows machine

I finally binned the cheap laptop my missus had as a teenager because I couldn't find a supported distro for 32bit anymore.
It still worked fine though.

 

[Is it PotG?]

As mentioned, merely overwrite (3x is more than sufficient for newer disks) then use as storage.

https://www.blancco.com/resources/blog-many-overwriting-rounds-required-erase-hard-disk/

Hammers, acid, fires, explosions, nuclear weapons and encasing in a 50ft concrete shell is all a little OTT.

 

[happypig]

As mentioned, merely overwrite (3x is more than sufficient for newer disks) then use as storage.

https://www.blancco.com/resources/blog-many-overwriting-rounds-required-erase-hard-disk/

Hammers, acid, fires, explosions, nuclear weapons and encasing in a 50ft concrete shell is all a little OTT.

OTT maybe, but the sheer, visceral pleasure of going at them with an angle grinder or club hammer is not to be underestimated

 

[Dick Swiveller]

I know you said don't mention removing the hard drive but have you Googled it? Normally, the older the laptop, the easier it is to remove the hard drive. Just Google your make and model and hard drive removal and it may just be a couple of screws.