Vocal Voices

Apart from removing and keeping the hard drive, is there any other security or safety measure that I need to do?

(We've got at least 4 PCs in the garage now .... )

Ossie, if you go here http://www.dban.org/ you can download dban to wipe the hard drives of the computers.

Burn it to disc and set your PCs to boot from CD/DVD then follow the prompts - or read this article's dban section http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/pc-co ... ard-drive/

You then have the choice to leave them in or take them out - at least you will know that they are clean.

Apart from making sure there are no discs in other drives there is not much else to do.

I usually stick a label on saying which processor and how much memory they have.... to help the "borrowers" amongst us.

Why don't you put them on Freecycle? That's what we did with several old computers and screens etc.
There was a young man who collected all sorts of old computers and accessories who was more than glad of them. He came and collected them each time we had a load advertised to go.

That is a good idea Rodo, so long as the HD is wiped as I mentioned above.

There are plenty of people out there who will make good use of an old computer, maybe to get Gran "tech savvy" or as a trainer for a young child.

Oh yes of course, as you say WM, make sure it is wiped clean first.

Thanks, both!

This thread prompts a question from me....

When my old desk-top computer gave up the ghost (old age and a clapped-out monitor)
I dumped it at the local tip, after first taking out the Hard Drive unit, which I still have.
This contains certain item that it would be good it I could access. Is there any reasonable
way I could achieve this?

Aggers, a powered external HD Drive Caddy, something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXTERNAL-DRIVE- ... 2409241-21 is probably the easiest way to go.

Make sure it matches your drive IDE/SATA or eSATA as per the drive info label. Local computer shops or PCW/Maplins should have them.

Once you have extracted the item you want you can use the drive as a backup or as an extra drive.

Thanks. Frank.

The next time I go into town I will take the HD into Maplins and see what they can offer.

Frank - I've been to Maplins and bought a Probox HD Enclosure.
No problem at all in assembling and setting up.

My laptop imediately recognised it as "Local Disc (G)" and I have no problem in bringing up various
programme files I had downloaded onto my old desktop'

However, I cannot manage to access the correspondence files, etc that are on the old HD, but when
I try to do so, I am presented only with a list of files from my laptop.

Can you tell me where I'm going wrong ?