Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => The Knowledge => Ctrl-Alt-Del => Topic started by: velosam on 16 April, 2024, 12:05:17 pm

Title: Old laptops
Post by: velosam on 16 April, 2024, 12:05:17 pm

I have a couple of old laptops, that I want to get rid of. Is there a way of recycling them ? My concern is with the hard drives and what personal information may or may not be on them.  The easiest solution is pull out the hard drives and scrap them, but it seems very wasteful.

Thanks

Title: Re: Old laptops
Post by: Regulator on 16 April, 2024, 12:26:36 pm

Have you thought about someone like the London Computer Recycling Charity (https://lcrcharity.co.uk/) (or your local equivalent)?

Title: Re: Old laptops
Post by: velosam on 16 April, 2024, 01:11:11 pm

Thanks booked a collection

Title: Re: Old laptops
Post by: Lightning Phil on 16 April, 2024, 01:26:21 pm

Wipe the drives before handing over

Title: Re: Old laptops
Post by: fruitcake on 16 April, 2024, 03:24:28 pm

It's possible to reuse your own HDDs by using a USB HDD enclosure and a USB cable. I have a couple of enclosures I bought from a well known auction site for £5 each.

The HDD in its caddy can be plugged into any computer USB port where it should pop up as an external drive. You can format the drive to wipe the data at that stage.

I use mine for data backups as I'm less likely to lose them than I am to lose a USB stick.

Title: Re: Old laptops
Post by: Gattopardo on 16 April, 2024, 04:05:30 pm

Quote from: velosam on 16 April, 2024, 12:05:17 pm

I have a couple of old laptops, that I want to get rid of. Is there a way of recycling them ? My concern is with the hard drives and what personal information may or may not be on them.  The easiest solution is pull out the hard drives and scrap them, but it seems very wasteful.

Thanks

Are they viable as modern laptops as I need to replace a couple of win7 laptops that are very much passed their best.

Title: Re: Old laptops
Post by: Arminius on 17 April, 2024, 10:49:54 am

Quote from: fruitcake on 16 April, 2024, 03:24:28 pm

It's possible to reuse your own HDDs by using a USB HDD enclosure and a USB cable. I have a couple of enclosures I bought from a well known auction site for £5 each.

The HDD in its caddy can be plugged into any computer USB port where it should pop up as an external drive. You can format the drive to wipe the data at that stage.

I use mine for data backups as I'm less likely to lose them than I am to lose a USB stick.

I used an enclosure for the HDD from an old laptop that wouldn't power up. I was mostly interested in seeing if I could find all of my ride data from 10-15 years ago (no such luck!), but using it for data backup hadn't occurred to me for some reason, so thanks for the idea.

Title: Re: Old laptops
Post by: velosam on 19 April, 2024, 05:22:20 pm

Quote from: Gattopardo on 16 April, 2024, 04:05:30 pm

Quote from: velosam on 16 April, 2024, 12:05:17 pm

I have a couple of old laptops, that I want to get rid of. Is there a way of recycling them ? My concern is with the hard drives and what personal information may or may not be on them.  The easiest solution is pull out the hard drives and scrap them, but it seems very wasteful.

Thanks

Are they viable as modern laptops as I need to replace a couple of win7 laptops that are very much passed their best.

these were way older and I did ask if they would wipe and they said yes. I have not used them in years and definately not for any online banking but I did for emails and I know I have changed my passwords. Hopefully be OK, too late now if not