I destroy the hard drive, take parts that I can use for other things, and then recycle the remaining parts. There's no reason that you should throw the computer away in the garbage because that's harmful for the environment and a waste. Recycling whatever is left is always the best option because the parts can be reused in other applications or at least disposed of properly.
My first laptop I handed over to a recycling center; the hard drive was fried and there was nothing really on it so no point in removing it. The second one that broke down I still have in a closet in my guest room. Not sure what I am going to do when I do decide to get rid of it. I don't think I have ever thrown any tech in the trash... except for this old Pandigital tablet that my mom had; I shouldn't have done that, especially since I had an SD card in it that I forgot about. But it was a 1GB SD card so no worries.
The best way to dispose of your old computer is to sell it to someone who is in need of it. I am sure that if it is in working conditions, somebody or other will definitely need it. What do you think about this thought?
One of the things that has always irked me was that so many computer manufacturers deliberately made all the parts of their computers custom shaped, so you couldn't swap out very many components from one brand or model to another. It's so wasteful, because think of how many custom motherboards, custom graphics cards, custom memory and such has gone to waste because it was created with some custom shape that wouldn't work in any standard towers or laptops. The whole planned obsolescence thing drives me up a wall, and it's been going on for decades in just about every industry.
wow that's.... pretty extreme. You can actually get a caddy online to store your harddrive in and connect to a usb cable so that use it as an external hard drive. Please don't destroy anymore hard drives!
I have not disposed of my old computer, I have two. I do have information on them that needs to be removed but since I don't know what to do with them I have not done anything at all with them. There are just sitting around collecting dust.
It's either I tell a friend about it and maybe he would find it useful enough for him/her to buy it from me or I would just plainly give it away. For really old computers I just give it away to someone who would still find it useful but if it's still okay I tend to put a price on it.
I usually try my hand on selling it first online, you'll never who out there is willing to purchase your junk. But if nobody is willing to buy I just tend to either give to someone who wants it free of charge or I just leave it in a box at home and forget it for 20 years and see if it's old enough to be of immense value.
If it's totally old and practically useless I tend to just toss it away or maybe scavenge for usable parts. I usually take the power supply, the case and the fans with me before I give it away or toss it out.
