How do you get rid of old laptops?

Greg, thanks for the tip on Clayton Ward. It only took me about 10-15 minutes to remove all 5 hard drives. Now it's off to the recycler with everything but the drives.
Can y'all say CRUNCH TIME!
drives.jpg

Thanks again for the help.
 
Cincy Aquaholic said:
You may want to consider saving the hard drives and using them for storage. Usually it’s the OS that goes out or the laptop itself but the HD is still useable. You can buy a very cheap device to plug a hard drive in and connect it to a USB on a PC and at least get pics or other files off it. You just can’t run the programs from it. But media should show up. And you can store other media on it. I have 2 like this.
Click to expand...
Cincy, I have a HUGE portable hard drive that I use for that and for backups.
 
Buy a laptop with an SSD (solid state drive). The traditional hard drives and fans, are the only moving parts in a computer, and hence, typically the first to go. The SSD drives not only don’t fail catastrophically, but they speed up your computer tremendously. I still use a 2011 MacBook Pro, the only update I made was to add a solid state drive in 2013. It boots in about 10 seconds (was 30-45 seconds with traditional drive). My daughters both have MacBook Airs, and they are still going strong after 5+ years. My wife has a 2015 MacBook Pro she uses daily for work, and it is still going strong, no speed degradation at all.
 
GypsmJim said:
Remove the hard drives and smash them to bits. Then take the parts to a Best Buy and throw them into their recycle bin. Easy peasy and costs no money. Alternately, some towns have annual free pickups. Don't throw them into the trash because its not environmentally responsible.
Click to expand...
Thanks - didn't realize they had a recycle bin.
 
Todd320 said:
Buy a laptop with an SSD (solid state drive). The traditional hard drives and fans, are the only moving parts in a computer, and hence, typically the first to go. The SSD drives not only don’t fail catastrophically, but they speed up your computer tremendously. I still use a 2011 MacBook Pro, the only update I made was to add a solid state drive in 2013. It boots in about 10 seconds (was 30-45 seconds with traditional drive). My daughters both have MacBook Airs, and they are still going strong after 5+ years. My wife has a 2015 MacBook Pro she uses daily for work, and it is still going strong, no speed degradation at all.
Click to expand...

I just installed Samsung SSD in two 4 year old laptops running Win7 that were slow and clunky. They run better than new, no exaggeration there. Boot up in 10-15 seconds, running Win10.

I was going to hire the drive and op sys install out but found no one I trust. It was so easy, downloaded Win10 on a thumb drive, put drive in laptop, started laptop, it asked if I wanted to install Win10, from there it asked what it needed and was very easy. A quick trip to Dell site and all the drivers were updated, including the BIOS.

New SSD drive, $130
Win10, $130
Fast like new laptop, Priceless...

MM
 
I absolutely hate Win10. When Vista came out I switched to strictly using Linux. May do that again.
 
Saturday I was out running errands and was in the Best Buy neighborhood. I had the laptops in the trunk of my car so I took them in. The guy at the door told me to just put them on the customer service counter and they would take care of them.

Done.

Thanks to all of you for your help and information.

Happy New Year!
 
Well those 5 hard drives have been turned into 5,000 little bits and pieces. I put them in a vise and attacked them with a large pair of pliers.
 
What to do with laptops? We use them for target practice. Our mini pistol gun range has a couple large cookie sheets on the ground to catch pieces. I gather the pieces up and toss them in the apt recycle bin.
 
Take out the Hard drive (or thoroughly wipe it out) and then donate the laptop to your favorite charity. If the laptop died, ask before donating - a lot of places will take them and try to repair or use for parts.
 
insfnds, that's a good idea, though I don't know what charity would accept a laptop. Most around here are run by little old lady volunteers who would be unlikely to have the experience with laptops to do anything with them.

Possibly Goodwill would. They have a training center here. These laptops didn't have the power cords so they wouldn't be able to use them.
 
Gofirstclass said:
insfnds, that's a good idea, though I don't know what charity would accept a laptop. Most around here are run by little old lady volunteers who would be unlikely to have the experience with laptops to do anything with them.

Possibly Goodwill would. They have a training center here. These laptops didn't have the power cords so they wouldn't be able to use them.
Click to expand...

Our local Goodwill told me they send them to recycling.

MM
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,171
Messages
1,427,826
Members
61,083
Latest member
wavespestcontrol
Back
Top