My old desktop

[Limpin' Jez McKenzie]

has dies - apparently soemthing to dow tih one of the fans, and it isn't worth fixing. I had everything on it backed up on an external hard drive, so have put most of that onto my new laptop.

I now want to scrap the old desk top.

My question is, how can I "clean up" my desk top before dumping it - so that there's no personal info etc on there - if it doesn't work?

[packrat]

The only thing you need to worry about is the hard drive. If you remove that, the rest can be tipped.

Depending on the size of the hard drive, you then have 2 options;

1. If it is of a decent enough size, buy an external caddy for it and use it as another backup

failing that

2. Beat the shit out of it with a hammer (good way of relieving frustration). Once it is a total mess, you can then quite safely bin that too. Just make sure you do a good job of beating it!

[Limpin' Jez McKenzie]

Thanks. Is it obvious where the hard drive is?

[packrat]

It would normally be fitted to the front of the case with 2 cables coming out the back of it, and secured by 2 screws on each side (at most)

This is what it looks like, more or less

[Limpin' Jez McKenzie]

It would normally be fitted to the front of the case with 2 cables coming out the back of it, and secured by 2 screws on each side (at most)

This is what it looks like, more or less

Murky buckets.

[packrat]

Depending on what brand your pc is will possibly vary the finer details here, but to ope the pc you need to do the following:

1. Disconnect the power cord!! Then switch the pc power switch on and off a few times to be sure you have cleared the charge.

2. Disconnect all the other cables - should mostly be sticking out the back.

3. Look closely, there should be 2 either screws or knurled knobs on the back (which you can loosen by hand) down the side of the case. Loosening those should mean taking off the side of the case to give you access internally.

4. When you stop coughing from all the dust gathered inside

5 Look to the top front (usually) or possibly bottom front - you should see the offending item trying to hide from your gaze.

6. Now remove the cables from the back. By feel you should be able to guage whether you need to pinch them to loosen retaining clips. If this is old enough that is unlikely to apply.

7. Once the cables are detached you will see the screws (2) on the side of the hard drive. Take those out. If you are lucky that should be it and you can slide it out backwards. However, variations include

a) Needing to remove the front cover on the pc to remove the drive out the front

and/or

b) Removing the other side of the case to access screws on the other side of the drive.


Whilst some off this may look garbled, if you read it with the pc in front of you it should make sense.



Good luck.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Be careful about "dumping" your computer. Aside from being harmful to the environment, it's illegal. At least it is here.

I'd follow as much of Martha's post as I could. At the very least, use KillDisc and go through the proper channels to recycle the old computer..

[Limpin' Jez McKenzie]

Be careful about "dumping" your computer. Aside from being harmful to the environment, it's illegal. At least it is here.

I'd follow as much of Martha's post as I could. At the very least, use KillDisc and go through the proper channels to recycle the old computer..

I was never going to "dump" it - off to the civic amenities site with it!!!

The point was that the computer doesn't work. Packrat's advice - take the hard drive out and get an external caddy, so that you can use it/work on it again - was the key bit.

[BlueMeanie]

Be careful about "dumping" your computer. Aside from being harmful to the environment, it's illegal. At least it is here.

I'd follow as much of Martha's post as I could. At the very least, use KillDisc and go through the proper channels to recycle the old computer..

Does anyone know of a Mac equivalent of KillDisk?

[Uncle Spellbinder]

I don't know if there is a Mac alternative to KillDisc, but this tutorial might help...

http://oit.ncsu.edu/data-removal/hard-disk-erasing-macs

[Limpin' Jez McKenzie]

Depending on what brand your pc is will possibly vary the finer details here, but to ope the pc you need to do the following:

1. Disconnect the power cord!! Then switch the pc power switch on and off a few times to be sure you have cleared the charge.

2. Disconnect all the other cables - should mostly be sticking out the back.

3. Look closely, there should be 2 either screws or knurled knobs on the back (which you can loosen by hand) down the side of the case. Loosening those should mean taking off the side of the case to give you access internally.

4. When you stop coughing from all the dust gathered inside

5 Look to the top front (usually) or possibly bottom front - you should see the offending item trying to hide from your gaze.

6. Now remove the cables from the back. By feel you should be able to guage whether you need to pinch them to loosen retaining clips. If this is old enough that is unlikely to apply.

7. Once the cables are detached you will see the screws (2) on the side of the hard drive. Take those out. If you are lucky that should be it and you can slide it out backwards. However, variations include

a) Needing to remove the front cover on the pc to remove the drive out the front

and/or

b) Removing the other side of the case to access screws on the other side of the drive.


Whilst some off this may look garbled, if you read it with the pc in front of you it should make sense.



Good luck.

Thank you very much for taking the trouble to post this - I finally got around to attacking the computer last night, and armed with a print-out of this post I have successfully extracted the hard drive. You have helped a great deal - thanks again.