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Community weekly poll: What did you do with your last old computer?
- 4/25/06 1:59 PM
Closet/Salvage/Donate
by Bob_Meyer - 4/25/06 6:05 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
They tend to stack up in a closet for a while until the church youth group has a garage sale, then I trot them all out, meticulously clean up hard drives (I use Simple File Shredder to remove sensitive data) and donate them. At the last Youth Garage sale I donated three desktops, one laptop, three monitors and a laser printer. The in-service fleet is down to four laptops, two desktops, five printers and assorted other peripherals, including five digital cameras.
Smoothwall Firewall
by avaughan61 - 4/25/06 6:12 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
I turned my old PC into a smoothwall firewall and it works great. I used tips from Cnet.com and smoothwall.org so now i have a hardware firewall. Good luck gettting in now bad guys!!!
How to destroy hard drive data for sure
by ashish7522 - 4/25/06 6:14 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
Just drill a couple of holes right through it and then recycle the remains.
HARD DRIVE
by Olliedog - 4/25/06 9:24 PM In reply to: How to destroy hard drive data for sure by ashish7522OR JUST GO IN YOUR BACKYARD, DIG A BIG HOLE, POUR CONCRETE IN AND PUT THE HARD DRIVE IN. COVER HOLE WITH DIRT. AND PRESTO !! NO MORE HARD DRIVE
Recycle hard drive
by kaalki - 4/25/06 6:14 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
I recycle my hard drives with a big hammer. They are not usable. All others part are used until totally obsolete, so obsolete that no one really wants them.I did give a way a 533 P4 and some old memory to a neighbor who is retired and could not afford a computer.
Evan
My last computer
by tbltx - 4/25/06 6:17 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
My last computer went to my son. It is a 1 Gig and will not play the new games that are out now. I am in the process of building him a new one as soon as the parts arrive. His computer will either be sold or pasted on to another relative.
Put them into the basement
by mandrewwhiteman - 4/25/06 6:17 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
I have 4 PCs and 1 laptop. They have data and photos I may want to retrieve in the future. They are useful as backups should I have trouble with my PC!
Laptops have a short life and by old laptop serves as a back up. When one of the laptops dies, I give it to a technician friend who rapairs it for his own network or resale.
@:http://www.LowCostTelecommunications.net
Make it so it can't be read.
by ntw1103 - 4/25/06 6:26 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
First I format the hard drive, then I fill the whole drive up with a long .mpeg of a blank screen. then I reformat it. then I shatter the hard drive after opening it up, put the parts in different trash bags, and take the bags out at different times. everthing else I Burn. j/k I just toss it.
I have the opposite problem!
by dkniskern - 4/25/06 7:55 PM In reply to: Make it so it can't be read. by ntw1103It might be easier just to send your old hard drives to me - I seem to have a knack for making them so they can't be read. My 5 month old Dell Dimension 4700C crashed when I tried to download a free antivirus program, and though I've taken it to three different places, no one has been able to retieve the data. Fortunately, most of my photos etc were backed up, but not the newest ones.
Sold it in 5 minutes on Craigs list
by winedy - 4/25/06 6:33 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
I reformatted the hard drive of course. I thought that was safe, but the people I sold it to were not very compter savvy so I feel OK about it. I had been hacked, and many strange things had been happening. I'm hoping this does not put me at future risk. I now have a Hardware Firewall, Spysweeper, and keep virus and securities updated. I am worried though because I have two shares on my new computer, and my Administrator Account has a password I did not initiate. Could I still have a problem? I've run all tests, and the only problem I've found is with MBSA, showing more than 1 share.
Maybe not a good idea
by mandrewwhiteman - 4/27/06 2:07 PM In reply to: Sold it in 5 minutes on Craigs list by winedyYou might be ok if you did a good wipe of the hard drive. You thought the people who bought it weren't comuter savvy. May be true or they could be prentending. That is an unknown factor. Even if you now have security features, the may retrieve your account numbers and passwords!
Still, my PC dies at least once a year, so I feel it is a good idea to beep a back up. I have so much data in my 1st PC (from 8 years ago) that I was unable to transfer on floppys (it is from the days before CD burners) that I may want to drag it out and retrieve data and photos.
@:http://www.lowcosttelecommunications.net
Target Pratice
by bassbeatz - 4/25/06 6:34 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
I system build as a hobby and average 30 units a year.
Quite often a client will ask do you want there old unit to which i all ways say yes as you never know when you might need some old parts for that person who belives in windows 98 and has that retro pc still.
Now Windows xp has taken hold i have very few clients left with 98 units so i decided to clear out not long back and found 5 towers with 166 intel pentium a massive 1 gig gard or below hard drive and a huge amount of ram at 64 mb or 32 mb.
Now as we know your pc can get you to the point that you want to shoot it,so when i have a bad pc day i put an old 166 tower out in my garden with the side off and get my 22 cal air arms air rifle with 200 bar of pressure which is enough for 160 rounds of logan penatrator pellets,or on a good day just pop a few shots off while xp lays on a hard drive.
I find hitting the cpu a challenge at 100 yds and hitting the diode pots can be fun.
The hard drive takes a good battering and a good way of destroying data and viruses 
So there you go no more shrink visits to say that you want to kill your pc just sacrafice your old one or take in donations.....Go on make your day
PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS IN A SAFE ENVIROMENT IGNORANCE IS NOT AN EXSCUSE.
More Target Practice
by johnlo - 4/25/06 7:00 PM In reply to: Target Pratice by bassbeatzWe recycled everything from our last computer except the hard drive. There was no charge for the recycle which was pretty amazing because virtually nothing gets recycled here, (hinterlands of Wyoming).
The hard drive was used as a target for some moderate to heavy sporting guns of both the handgun and rifle varieties and then dumped in the garbage.
Closet Computers
by J Tench - 4/25/06 6:35 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
I have 3 computers and 3 printers basically sitting around that I would like to sell. But I haven't got around to doing it yet.
I took a large capacity disk out of one to put into a networkable external enclosure which is now shared over the network. Works a treat too, everyone on the network has access and its pretty fast.
So now we are left with 4 desktops, 1 laptop, 2 printers, 1 file server and a ton of spare parts. All of the disks have been securely erased before we reloaded the OS and Office software.
PC To Children
by George B. Lockwood - 4/25/06 6:56 PM In reply to: What did you do with your last old computer? by Marc Bennett
I suggest after reformatting the hard drive using White Canyon WipeDrive, then use White Canyon SecureClean.
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