What to do with an old broken laptop

[T. MIKE SMITH]

I have about 5 back in my office- One from 2005 that has AutoCAD on it I still use once in a while when I need to draw a plan for something. The other 4 just died a slow death with one going more than 12 years before I gave up on it- The @ key would not work unless you hit it about 20 times. I was just using as a screen to look at data for appraisal work. I've tried Sony- Dell and Acer. Acer has been the best of any- many years of service for 2 earlier units 09 - 2000- to currently using 2 from 2019 and 2021 that still work great.

 

[Blue Heeler]

I would suggest The Mac Shop in Wilmington, DE. They did a good job recovering stuff off of Hunter Biden’s laptop … but they have had to close.

 

[greytdanehouse]

Disposal recommendations?

Wipe or remove the hard drive, then take it to a staples office supply store. They have an electronics recycling program.

 

[greytdanehouse]

Interesting, last week three of us were on ham radio one night discussing old lap tops. I pulled out a win98 that booted up and an old XP that booted while plugged in. One guy suggested loading linux or what ever it is operating system on them and put them back into service doing some normal stuff with a lot of programs existing out there They would not be fast, but they would be functional.

I have an old laptop that i installed Linux on which I use solely as the server for my close circuit security system. Doesn't do anything but sit there and record video feeds from the cameras.

 

[Kid Glock]

Little off topic as not applicable to laptops so much but the old CRT tv's and monitors were/are a hoot to shoot.
NOTE- CRT as mentioned above has nothing to do with critical race theory.

 

[CHenry]

Wipe or remove the hard drive, then take it to a staples office supply store. They have an electronics recycling program.

how do I wipe the hard drive? it wont turn on.

 

[Jason Freeland]

how do I wipe the hard drive? it wont turn on.

Pull the drive and use a usb drive caddy to read it. Note this will not work if the drive was soldered to the mainboard, but I doubt it was. That is normally something done for memory.

Edit: something like this will work for an M.2 drive, it just depends on how old your laptop was as to what kind of drive was in it.

https://www.amazon.com/SSK-Aluminum...qid=1719342693&sprefix=m.2+usb,aps,116&sr=8-3

 

[CHenry]

Pull the drive and use a usb drive caddy to read it. Note this will not work if the drive was soldered to the mainboard, but I doubt it was. That is normally something done for memory.

In English? lol

 

[Jason Freeland]

In English? lol

I think you replied while I was editing. I put a link to one type in my edit.

 

[Jason Freeland]

In English? lol

Are you in the OKC metro area? I have the necessary stuff to do it.