Disposal

[Ldy AlliDu]

How do I get rid off OLD stuff, computer, cables, scanner and printer, thanks.
P.S. The drop-off Saturday at the park said they only took hard-drives, I did not have time.

[seamusTX]

If it works at all, I give it to Goodwill. They have a computer recycling program and actually operate a computer store in Houston.

Biosphere 1 in Texas City takes electronics. I think they may charge a fee for non-residents.

I have seen mention of some kind of recycling days at JSC, but I did not pay attention.

- Jim

[Ldy AlliDu]

Thanks, I'll check out Biosphere this week.

[Mike1951]

I want to say that Best Buy has a disposal program.

They don't pay you anything, just assures that it is disposed/recycled properly.

I heard it on one of the tv stations. You can call Best Buy to verify.

[chasfm11]

I've recycled a bunch of stuff through Best Buy. It is easy. You just go to the service desk and hand them the items.

[xducnx]

I used to work in a computer shop and we took (and actually bought decent items) in at no charge as we can use some of the parts off of them for replacement of computers that come in for repair.

[10Shooter]

How do I get rid off OLD stuff, computer, cables, scanner and printer, thanks.
P.S. The drop-off Saturday at the park said they only took hard-drives, I did not have time.

Before you get rid of an old hard drive or computer, you need to make sure the data on the drive is impossible to recover. Frankly, data is almost always recoverable to some degree, but with the proper precautions you can at least make sure that Joe Shmoe who bought your hard drive from your garage sale can't access your Quicken financial information.

First, you should understand that deleting files, and even formatting your hard drive, are not sufficient. Both processes really just remove the information the hard drive needs to find the data, not the data itself. Deleted files can be undeleted and formatted hard drives can be recovered.

To be sure that your data is removed beyond all practical ability to recover it, you should use a wiping or erasing utility. These tools overwrite every sector of the hard drive with binary 1's and 0's. Those that meet government security standards even overwrite each sector multiple times for added protection.
http://netsecurity.about.com/od/quickti ... _drive.htm

Please, please do not donate without taking precautions of YOUR data.
I am speaking as an IT Professsional.

[PBratton]

Take it to Goodwill and get the Tax Deduction!

[WarHawk-AVG]

How do I get rid off OLD stuff, computer, cables, scanner and printer, thanks.
P.S. The drop-off Saturday at the park said they only took hard-drives, I did not have time.

Before you get rid of an old hard drive or computer, you need to make sure the data on the drive is impossible to recover. Frankly, data is almost always recoverable to some degree, but with the proper precautions you can at least make sure that Joe Shmoe who bought your hard drive from your garage sale can't access your Quicken financial information.

First, you should understand that deleting files, and even formatting your hard drive, are not sufficient. Both processes really just remove the information the hard drive needs to find the data, not the data itself. Deleted files can be undeleted and formatted hard drives can be recovered.

To be sure that your data is removed beyond all practical ability to recover it, you should use a wiping or erasing utility. These tools overwrite every sector of the hard drive with binary 1's and 0's. Those that meet government security standards even overwrite each sector multiple times for added protection.
http://netsecurity.about.com/od/quickti ... _drive.htm

Please, please do not donate without taking precautions of YOUR data.
I am speaking as an IT Professsional.

Darik's boot and nuke, even running all 0's (quick method) will prevent 99.9% of the people that may get your drive from recovering data...if you do not...I guarantee they can and will look at your data. DBAN contains All the current data wipe methods, the DoD standard Guttmans wipe, and a slew of others...nice thing is...it will erase ALL the drives in the computer at the same time!