How to Retire an Old Computer Securely

Shoot first, ask questions later

When you buy a new computer for your home, there’s often a debate about what to do with the old one. Unless you are planning to move the old computer to somewhere else in the house (ie. one of the kids can now use it – or it becomes a machine used to look up recipes in the kitchen or project plans in the garage), you need to know how to “retire” the computer securely.

Trash or recycle?

The answer to this question really depends on the answer to one key question: Are you planning to give the computer to someone else - or just throw it out with the trash?

There are lots of places that run computer recycling programs for schools and non-profit agencies – such as the San Francisco-based Computer Recycling Center or the recycling program run by Dell Corporation in conjunction with the Cristina Foundation. You may also find schools and charitable agencies in your area that are looking for donations of second-hand computers.

Hard drive is the key

But before you give an old computer to anyone, you need to remove the personal information you have stored on it. The best advice in this scenario, presuming that have made a back-up copy of everything you wanted from the old computer, is either to completely reformat the hard drive and wipe out all the information on it – or simply remove the hard drive and take a hammer or some other blunt instrument to it before donating the computer. Any sizable computer recycling operation will have other hard drives that they can put in the computer before passing it on to a non-profit or school.

If you reformat the drive, you can re-install the operating system software and applications that came with it (such as, for example, Windows ME or Windows XP and Microsoft Works) provided that you have the original installation CDs and have not installed from those CDs on any other computer.

Keeping the monitor

If you are going to throw out the computer, you may want to keep the monitor. Many new computers support the ability to use multiple monitors – and, depending on the size of your desk, it can be quite useful to have your information shown on two displays (perhaps one for your fun stuff and another for more serious homework or accounting).

Little value in antiques

The final issue to consider is how old the computer is. A system that is more than three or four years old is probably not even worth donating to anyone. It will cost more than the machine is worth for someone to keep it going – unless they are planning to use it for a very limited task that will not require any new software (which typically won’t run on older operating systems).