What do you do with an old PC?

[SwishYouToASwazzle]

I've just bought a new PC to replace my 8 yo one. It thought it had a floppy disk drive , the date and time was always wrong no matter how many times I corrected it and it was veeerrryyy sssllllooowww.

So, should I sell it for spares and repairs or should I take it to the dump?

The monitor, keyboard and mouse I'll sell on separately.

All advice greatly received

Oh and if I'm selling it on, should I wipe the hard drive? I've deleted all photos/music/documents

I'm sure i saw a show once that said the only true way to clear a hard drive is to smash it to pieces!

We remove the hard drive for security and then Freecycle or tip the rest of the PC ( processor, speakers, keyboard & mouse). If you think you might need access to the data on your hard drive you can buy am adaptor/ hard drive case which will plug in to your PC cost is £10 or £15.

Nuke the hard drive with DBAN and Freegle it.

Removing and destroying the hard drive is only necessary if you have the launch codes for trident missiles stored on it.

We remove ours in case we need to access the data.

Install a server distribution of Linux on it (such as Ubuntu Server). Maybe put a decent-sized hard drive in. Use a (modern) computer to ssh to it. Then set it up to provide backup, E-mail, media streaming or whatever else is useful. I use mine to serve me documents and music wherever I am over the Web, back up all my code, run my own E-mail, filter domain name service requests and archive multimedia stuff.

You could use ordinary Linux with GUI and virtual desktop service but it won't work with Windoze, which demands a modern-spec PC.

Just to remind you op, deleting does not remove the items Some free software will easily get them back. As has been said remove and smash the hard drive or scrub it with some software.

Put a drill through your hard drive to make sure no one can access encrypted data!

The DBAN tip above is probably the easiest bet, plus it's free to downoad - See www.dban.org/

Horrified at all this smashing them and putting a drill through them. We had a couple a few years ago we just wiped and gave to a charity that sent them to village schools in Africa.

Totally agree with that missnevermind - Well said !!!

To add to the op's questions, I am in a similar position. I don't need to access any of my files/photos/emails etc. I have put them on disc.

I understand that deleting them hasn't wiped the hard drive as such. However I don't have any really sensitive/dodgy items or files related to national security etc...so I don't feel the need to drill through the hard drive or destroy it.

However I would prefer to know that my private emails/letters/photos weren't easiy accessible to anyone I passed the hard drive on to.