What do I do with my old computers?

[MicWayWal]

I am afraid the TV show Hoarders in going to be driving up anytime.

I have 8 computers that I need to dispose of this week. A lot of places will take them off my hands for $10 for each computer and monitor. That is $160. I want to get rid of them for FREE.
Can I just throw them away at the City of Plano dump?
I don't think anyone would want these. The newest one is 9 years old.None of them

[RKDauph]

Giv'em to charity. They will strip them down to components and sell the strap and you get more than a $10 tax credit.

[picman]

When I first read this I thought they were giving you $10 each - oops.

Anyway, try this - grand opening tomorrow.
Goodwill computer store opens on North Haskell Friday | Advocate Magazine

[zachary]

Give em' to me.

[SCone]

Sit them out on the driveway in the alley... they'll be gone within an hour

[irfan.in.tx]

Remove the hard drives before you part with the computers. Then find a way of physically destroying the HDs. Much of discarded/donated computer equipment ends up in strange places, and data never really goes away.

[ka5txl]

Originally Posted by irfan.in.tx

Remove the hard drives before you part with the computers. Then find a way of physically destroying the HDs. Much of discarded/donated computer equipment ends up in strange places, and data never really goes away.

+1 When I dispose of a pc the hard drive never goes with it.

[auddii]

I believe it is illegal to dump computers and monitors at the dump. I agree about the charities who will sell them (or use them even). Definitely not worth paying $10 each to get rid of them.

[davidlc]

I was told that the only thing you can do is get a hammer and physically destroy the HD. Haven't tried it yet but I am sure that it is not too easy to do.

[revjvegas]

Disk Wipe - Free software
free and does a pretty good job at destroying the data.

Then if you're really paranoid, its not that hard to remove all the screws and get the platters out so you can physically destroy them.

[brewercm]

You could also go the hard route and run an overwrite software on the hard drives that writes ones and zeors over several times before getting rid of them. Other than that you can take them apart and smash the platters with a hammer like mentioned.

[SJHester]

a good drill right throught the platters works too, just make sure it's a good sharp bit. I prefer to do a DOD wipe and give a functional computer to a charity

[Flea77]

Originally Posted by SJHester

a good drill right throught the platters works too, just make sure it's a good sharp bit. I prefer to do a DOD wipe and give a functional computer to a charity

Yep, never understood why people make it so hard, getting hammers, running software for hours on end, sheesh, I have better things to do with my time! One nice sharp drill bit and it is all over, 30 seconds, don't even remove it from the case, done.

Allan

[texkam]

Peppermint | Linux OS
Only 192 MB of RAM required.
or
The Linux Mint Blog Blog Archive Linux Mint 10 LXDE released! (LXDE). I have the Fluxbox version on a 550MHz machine. Nothing sexy, and not blazing fast, but for someone who doesn't need much it's a decent free option. Worked well as a second work station when the kid's friends would meet here to work on a group project (internet/word processing). Had to listen to " Hey, where's Word and IE?" "Um, try FF and AbiWord, you'll be fine". I also had to listen to "OMG look at this old-school boxy monitor".

[daveb]

Originally Posted by sjhester

a good drill right throught the platters works too, just make sure it's a good sharp bit. I prefer to do a dod wipe and give a functional computer to a charity

+1