Obliterating hard drive on old pc

[nicklz]

So what all should be done so personal information doesn't fall into the wrong hands if I scrap an old computer? Dynamite not an option.

[Engel]

take the hard drive out... if you dont know what it looks like do a google image search for them.  It should be pretty easy to take out, after you take the case off (which is usually only held on by a few screws or maybe just snaps on) it should only be connected by a few screws and a plug.  After removing the hard drive take it apart and smash it up.  Then donate the rest of the computer.  You can get a tax rebate on donated electronics and computers if you get a receipt.  Usually goodwill gives receipts.

[nicklz]

That's cool. Thanks! I'm sure my kid would know where it is if I have trouble. I was planning on donating it, but I didn't know that a tax rebate was possible.

[-G]

You might want to donate it to somone with hard luck at your church.

I would run a drive shredder application on the hard drive if you are concerned about privacy issues.

Format your hard drive without possibility of data recovery.

Active@ KillDisk - Hard Drive Eraser is powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It's a hard drive and partition eraser utility. Active@ KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M. The most secure Gutmann's data destruction method is also implemented. You can be sure that once you clean up with Active@ KillDisk, sensitive information is purged out forever. New Wipe function that wipes out all unused space on existing drives, not touching existing data. We highly recommend you to run this FREE utility for the hard and floppy drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate to somebody.

Download:
http://dw.com.com/redir?edId=3&siteId=4&oId=3001-2092_4-10073508&ontId=2092_4&spi=9219f7ce8286da7a36da89c5623cf02d&lop=txt&tag=idl2&pid=10852099&mfgId=87500&merId=87500&pguid=pKV@GQoPjAIAABAbaDQAAABO&destUrl=http%3a%2f%2fsoftware-files.download.com%2fsd%2fnlXOP6Aaj3rtmI9keAjBHcaR5asjox5v_NNKQ9olUS_F5IBv6RM08tAWJ2RixW0gy8Y56aOfWpX8OELN8uSshwJ_WWzhgknm%2fsoftware%2f10852099%2f10073508%2f3%2fKillDiskSuiteFree-Setup.exe%3flop%3dlink%26ptype%3d1901%26ontid%3d2092%26siteId%3d4%26edId%3d3%26spi%3d9219f7ce8286da7a36da89c5623cf02d%26pid%3d10852099%26psid%3d10073508

[nicklz]

The thing is I don't think it even works. You helped me with it before and it's the one that the disk drive was replaced on and it still wouldn't work. I couldn't use that download on it because I was lucky it even got power.

For future reference it might be a good idea to have so I'll keep it in mind. Thanks for everyone's help.