Disposing Of An Old Laptop--Identity and Data Theft Issues
 

If you want to throw away an old laptop computer (my city has no electronics recycling program), is removing the hard disk sufficient to prevent identity and data theft?

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I would wipe the HD with a "cybercide" type of program that is intended for preparing HDs for disposal (whether for re-use or not).

There are several commercial and public-domain programs available.

Yes, I'm aware of DBan. But my question was about throwing away the computer without the HD.

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Actually, I am in the same boat as you are.

I removed the HD from my broken laptop and placed it into an enclosure - I keep it as an archival backup.

I was thinking of disposing of the laptop carcass (my county does have a recycling program), but have not had a chance to do any research on the question of whether there is any "non-volatile" information that might still remain on the laptop itself.

Don't throw it away. Even if your city doesn't have a recycling program, I'm sure an electronics retailer near you does.

If you still can't find one, search online for electronics recycling. I believe it's free to ship it to most places, and you might even get a gift cert (though the ebay value is generally a lot greater than what you'll get from these trade in deals).

To answer this Q: Yes

Try listing the laptop on eBay. You'll be surprised at what you get.

I sold a fried eMachines laptop that was 4 years old, and I made out $60 for my efforts.

Or try advertising on Craigslist or Freecycle. Someone may be able to make use of the spare parts.

Another "earning" option for recycling old/dead electronics is RecycleBank. They operate an incentive/loyalty program to encourage recycling and other green activities. Recycling laptops is one of the benefits they offer points for.

http://www.recyclebank.com/earn/electronics/

N.B. - I'm related to an employee which arguably skews my view of their operations, but I do think it is a pretty awesome company.

My old laptop won't boot, just the blue screen of death and I've tried all the obvious solutions.

I don't care about what's on the hard drive since it was all backed up or unnecessary. I'm just worried about what might be handing around temp files/cookies that some enterprising person might be able to hack into.

Pull the HD anyway, and then recyle it?

Ya know, if you're getting BSODs, then you (probably) have a usable machine. Why not boot from your WinXP/Vista/Win7 CD, delete all partitions, reformat, and install a fresh OS - it may run like new for quite awhile. Or, if the HD is damaged/old/too small, you can get a new one for less than $50.

Could be just a hard drive with bad sectors that is repairable.

However, if you do want to get rid of the laptop, pull the HD, recycle the laptop, then physically destroy the HD so no one can get the data.

One of the easier methods to physically destroy a HD is to drill several holes through it.

someone has to be VERY crafty and high tech to get passwords and data off a computer without the hard drive. Some have shown it CAN be done with screen burn in and keyboard KEYS analysis. I would NOT WORRY about that at all, and wiping the HD with a 5+ pass program is going to be perfectly fine. (GOOG for example doesn't dispose of ANY of their computers regardless of what is done with them. I've seem ROOMS stacked high of thinkpads)

Don't throw it away though, apple with recycle a computer if you buy something new and HP I think gives 50$ against a purchase. Otherwise, there are many recycle companys that will take them in. Depending on the computer, like a thinkpad laptop for example the SCREEN could be worth much more than the computer alone in the hands of someone who needs one replaced.

The things I tried included booting from the CD, which also failed. At this point this is my oldest (out of 4) laptops, weighs a ton, has lost several of its keys, and is just pretty much a doorstop. Its been sitting in my closet for a couple years just waiting to be disposed of.

LandingGear, OP are you saying that NYC has NO computer recycling program?

This is probably a hard drive / windows issue. Buy a new hard drive and reinstall windows, and this laptop should work fine. Could be a memory issue too, but it sounds like the motherboard is working okay, so it's worth some money.

You can use it as a spare laptop for a lot of cool things, like a file server, caller id server - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvRg_VgFojc, etc etc. Don't throw it away!