How do I wipe data off an old computer?

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meg_hansen2000 - Nov 29, 2010 at 03:38 PM
xpcman Posts 19530 Registration date Wednesday October 8, 2008 Status Contributor Last seen June 15, 2019 - Nov 29, 2010 at 09:39 PM
Hello, I have an old desktop that just stopped working, it will not turn on and seems to be connected correctly, we checked all the wiring.

Should I just remove the harddrive? Thanks for any help.
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xpcman Posts 19530 Registration date Wednesday October 8, 2008 Status Contributor Last seen June 15, 2019 1,825
Nov 29, 2010 at 09:39 PM
You can do that. You can remove the drive and hit the circuit board with a hammer a few times. Then just toss it in the recycle bin. No one is going to spend the 100 plus hours needed to recover the data on the disk. You could also hammer on the opposite side of the drive bending the thin metal cover until you break the data platters. Then the drive totally disabled.
If you want to try to reuse the drive, you could get a program called "killdisk" that will run from a floppy and erase the drive multiple times. It all depends on your level of concern and the type of data on the drive.

Goode Luck
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