[Hidden-tech] Re: Recycling dead computers?

Matt Lampiasi mattl at florenceit.net
Wed May 28 17:09:53 EDT 2008


Re the nail through the drive, I couldn't agree more Will.  Every day 
we're being reminded of the scarcity of the materials and resources that 
make the life we enjoy so possible (at least the news, movies and 
magazines i'm seeing), it doesn't seem like a good choice to me to 
destroy something needlessly.

Organizations who need certification (or want it) that their data is 
safely removed can send the hard drive (or whole pc) to someplace like 
greendisk.com up in new hampshire, you'll get a nice certificate ;). 
there are more and more of these type org's popping up and this one in 
particular promises your e-waste wont be getting shipped oversees. 
getting the data securely removed prior to donating a working pc will 
require a middleman like myself unless you have a bunch of hours to put 
into it. It's not economically feasible considering the cost of a 
technicians labor but it's absolutely worth the effort for a number 
reasons, especially if the PC is useful as you point out Will.  I don't 
offer this service publicly but do this a lot for existing clients (if 
the pc is worth it), as its time intensive to refurb a pc for donation 
_especially_ if you need the data (really securely) wiped first.

The shed util that people have mentioned is on my suse linux server by 
default, and I found that it should be on a Knoppix live cd you can 
download and run on any drive the system can see. 
http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2F2006%2Fs1706%2F51s06%2F51s06.asp

This might be a good business startup opportunity if someone could come 
up with a way to refurb pcs for less $ than a typical solution provider 
like myself would have to charge for my time. The tricky part is 
offering the validated secure removal of customer data, and then getting 
an OS back on the machine. There's no quick way to do it unless 
economies of scale come into play, for example with a bunch of the same 
model computers which would allow the ability to do hard drive cloning 
and cut your labor.


Will Loving wrote:
> Having said all that, I understand the concerns of people about the data on
> their hard drives. In my experience, it is extremely unlikely that anyone
> receiving your old computer in Africa will have the knowledge necessary
> scavenge the drive for personal data of any value, especially if you use
> some of the suggestions that others have posted and to wipe the drive and
> then do a clean system installation from the original install disk.
>   

-- 
Thank you,
Matt Lampiasi, President
Florence I.T. - A Community IT shop.
413-303-9167 or @ florenceit.net <http://florenceit.net>

New! Enterprise class spam filtering with backup mail service affordably
priced per user. Setup in minutes for the entire office without a site 
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