Page 1 of getting rid of old computer.

a friend is changing computers so needs to get rid of the old one. what steps do they need to take before doing this. i have done a little reading and most seem to suggest keeping hold of the hard drive, but are there any other parts they need to check out. it is quite old, i don`t think any parts would be of use so i think its going to the tip. they wanted to make sure they got rid of all data, having read some stories about data being retrieved from discarded computers.

cheers.

The hard drive`s the only sensitive area of a computer - take it out, unscrew the top and whack the platters inside with a sledgehammer. Job done. :D

J Mark Oates

This item was edited on Thursday, 3rd September 2009, 02:57

dban is a more elegant solution than teh above to wipe the hard drive of all data.

how old is old? as well as my main pc I still use a 10 yr old pii 450 which is more or less fine for simple web surfing and email. There could be some local charities that would like it, I know there are some near me. They use them for teaching ppl the basics of using computers.

www.beazombie.com
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Be A Zombie in a British horror film production and help charitable causes at the same time.

This item was edited on Thursday, 3rd September 2009, 06:50

thanks for the replies.

i will pass on the info, and mention the charity idea. not sure exactly how old it is, but it could be an idea if it is still working alright. i suppose it depends on why they are changing it.

now to email them a picture of what a hard drive looks like :)

thanks again.

Theres quite a few uses for an old computer, we (OK I) bought a HP Athlon the other week, purely to hook up to our Sony LCD & use it as a media centre.

Had to bump up the RAM a bit Windows 7 ran like a turd on 512Mb, but it does cut out a lot of the arguments as to whose laptop has the toolbar installed or VPN running.

Tried GeeBox on it today (Linux Media\HT PC) wasnt that impressed by its capabilities or GUI (though I may be doing it a diservice) it wouldn`t recogise our R1 DVD`s & I didn`t have any avi files to hand either, coupled with the fact we need FF or to be able to configure a VPN in order to watch BBC\ITV player output.

Will see how Myth TV works later, theres an interesting offshoot called Pluto that has your media following you from room to room, the software is open source but the "branded" pluto system makes its money on the hardware.



I consider myself an optimist, albeit an optimist with cynical tendencies and a dark side that Lucifer himself would find a little creepy. (Perhaps you've noticed.) You don't normally associate cynicism with an upbeat pov. But I have exactly that combination and will defend it.

Heartily glad that I don`t have to learn how to spell Chiwetel Ejiofor.


AdTelly

GeeXBox is great, it lets my PII 450 play DivXs and DVD like a modern PC :B But I just use it on that PC using the monitor, nothing fancy. the GUI is a bit "crayola".

With Myth are you going to try it from scratch, or use a myth distro like mythbuntu or mythdora? I wanted to give it a go, but there`s no Linux driver for my usb tv card :(

www.beazombie.com
Code:
Be A Zombie in a British horror film production and help charitable causes at the same time.

I`m not certain what Myth I am going for as yet (quite a lot of them), the Pluto system looks nice, but is more than I need or can afford at this moment.
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Quote:

The Pluto Core is a media server for your whole CD/DVD collection. The Media Director renders the media from the Pluto Core. The Pluto Mobile Orbiter and the Pluto Orbiter are used to control your home.

I have a couple of DVD players here (the Sony home theatre (R1) & a Phillips that is now MR & upscales to 1080i) they both on paper handle avi\Divx.

I need something that plays back the usual media files & will use that machine primarily for certain downloads, storage & play back (when`s Lost back on), I also need Firefox, to use the AdTelly plugin & VPN set up, a bonus would be to allow the other machines here to access from within the house the media on their laptops.

I`m currently using Windows 7 Ultimate (160Gb HDD) & on 1.5Gb RAM (upgraded from the base memory of 512Mb) it rocks along on this, I still have the original & configured XP Pro HDD (40GB IIRC).

# AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core, Athlon 64, and Sempron™ processors with HyperTransport™ technology
Genuine Windows XP Professional SP2 (64bit version?)
# Integrated DDR I dual-channel memory controller
# ATI Radeon® Xpress 200M chipset
# Integrated Radeon X300 based graphics - standard VGA and DVI-D ports
# Supports up to 4-GB of PC 3200 (DDR 400) Synch DRAM Memory
# 6 rear USB 2.0 ports and 2 front USB 2.0 ports
# Realtek AC97 integrated audio with internal speaker
# Integrated PCI-E Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet NIC
# x1 and x16 PCI-Express slots
# Two 32-bit PCI slots

I can live with XP when 7 eventually dies, but woud like to break the shackles of MS, while having a simple GUI HTPC.

Any suggestions?



I consider myself an optimist, albeit an optimist with cynical tendencies and a dark side that Lucifer himself would find a little creepy. (Perhaps you've noticed.) You don't normally associate cynicism with an upbeat pov. But I have exactly that combination and will defend it.

Heartily glad that I don`t have to learn how to spell Chiwetel Ejiofor.


AdTelly

This item was edited on Friday, 4th September 2009, 17:11

I think you should give it to a charity - they are always in need of funds which they could easily raise by extracting and using the bank and credit card details from your old hard drive - another problem - sorted ;)