PC Recycling
If you have been in business for a good few years like I have the chances are that you will have a cupboard full of old PCs gathering dust. With the relentless advances in hardware and software technologies computers can be out of data within a couple of years.
So should you recycle your old PC?
Of course the answer is yes you should as there are many deserving cases out there that would appreciate your old computer even if they just use it to browse the internet.
The most important caveat when recycling your old PC must be to destroy any data that is resident on your hard disk drive. Many computers have been sent for recycling by well-meaning businesses only to have it come back and bite them when confidential data is later discovered.
This happens as data is very rarely deleted from a hard disk. When you hit the delete key the data still sits there, but the references that point to it are told that it has been deleted. With very simple tools unsophisticated users can recover “deleted” data from any hard disk. There are a number of software tools available that all have various claims as to there effectiveness at deleting data from hard disk drives. Some will randomly copy 1’s and 0’s across a disk, others carry out clever tasks such as moving the data around and mixing it up.
None of these can absolutely guarantee the data is destroyed.
I personally would never send a PC of mine to be recycled with the hard disk in situ, no matter what tools I may have used to wipe the disk clean. Instead I encourage you to remove the hard disk from the PC and carefully physically destroy it making sure that you cut up the magnetic media.
New hard disks are very cheap, your business data isn’t. You may find this guide on recycling hardware of use;
Recycling your computer hardware
By Mr BITG Virtual Director, Business IT Guide
