If it’s time to give up on old PC, ensure hard drive is destroyed
There's nothing quite like getting a new computer. It's faster than Big Brown in the Preakness or Michael Phelps in any pool. It resembles a concept car compared to the rusty junker you swooned over three or four years ago. (Or maybe six or seven years ago.) It holds more than Lake Mead before the drought.
But what do you do with that has-been computer that once housed all your electronic documents, music, photos and whatever else that comprises your digital life?
Should you pass it along to Mom or Dad? Do you have to worry about being sure all the data is really erased from the hard drive? Should you just set it at the curb on garbage day?
The only sure-fire way to be sure electronic files that resided on your old computer are really gone for good is to remove the disk drive and destroy it. Take a hammer to it, or better yet, take it to a shredding company that provides hard-disk destruction. It won't cost much, and you'll have peace of mind.
A search of "hard-drive destruction" on YouTube gives several do-it-yourself examples of how to put that hard drive out of commission. A visit to the SSI Shredding Systems site (www.ssiworld.com) answers shredding-related questions and shows dozens of examples of their equipment at work.
I was especially impressed by the piano and refrigerator shredding videos. The BMW being eaten was pretty entertaining, too. Hard drives and computer components are torn to bits in seconds.
But what if you want that old computer to have a new life and you want to be sure all the data has been wiped off the hard drive before handing it over to a new owner?
The Blind Center of Nevada (www.blindcenter.org) has both data wiping services and computer equipment recycling programs. Visually impaired workers at the Blind Center facility on Bruce Street electronically sanitize computers and provide a certificate of destruction. The charge is only $8 per hard drive. They also offer on-site data sanitization via a mobile version of their in-house server and can remove data from up to 23 computers at a time.
The Blind Center will pick up old computers for no charge, provided the customer has at least 1,000 pounds of gear they want to dispose of. That's about 20 computers, monitors and keyboards.
Visit the Blind Center site for a pricing list, as some components are disposed of for free, while others have a cost per pound of equipment.
The minimum charge is $10.
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Remember to visit my Tidbits blog at www.lvrj.com/blogs/onlineguy. I post information all week on Web sites and Internet trends, and have been known to pontificate about all things related to our digital world.
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