Electronics

[esmerelda]

They are no longer used and have the windows xp operating system on them.  And I want to free up the space they're taking. 

My plan is to transfer what I want from then to a portable/backup device and then take them apart/trash them somehow (take a hammer to the hard drives?).

I have one of those backup devices from about 10 years ago.  I'm sure there are newer/better ones and I'd appreciate information. 

Thanks in advance. 

[SurferWife]

Drill holes in the HD.  The data will be unrecoverable.

[chickenbutt]

Definitely destroy the hard drives as much as you possibly can!  I say this because I know somebody whose best friend worked for some governmental entity that did forensics on computers.  He could take pieces of a broken hdd and pull out info.

Also, as to those 'cleaners' you can get - nah!  They don't get anywhere near everything.  I'm not implying that you have anything to hide, of course, but personal stuff that you've used on it such as financial things, checking bank accounts, paying bills, etc.  There is so much that can be stolen.

I still have every hard drive from every former computer just because I am so weak now and cannot destroy them myself, so I just keep them and got rid of the rest of the computer.

[Nuttmeg]

@esmerelda

I usually give my computers away after a few years. I reset Windows back to an out of the box condition.

I would remove the hard drive and make it unusable in some way. 

I would not be concerned about saving old data from a Windows XP machine. Most data this old is no longer readable. You do not know what files and programs work together. These associations are lost with time.

[esmerelda]

@Nuttmeg  Thanks. I’m thinking mainly original documents (journal, personal letters, photos). 

[esmerelda]

@chickenbutt Thanks, but I think you misunderstood. I’m not looking for any racer. I want something where I can transfer what I want to keep.  Maybe a Zip drive is all I need. 

[Nuttmeg]

@esmerelda

You should be able to find information about moving files to a  external hard drive with a Google search. You need to be able to read the recovered files on a Windows 10 computer.

You may find some help with from a YouTube search. 

[TheMemphisVette]

my files are only in two places.  pictures and documents.

when changing computers, i use a jump drive.  drag and drop all files in those two locations to jump drive.

do the reverse with new computer.

nothing special is needed.

[Nuttmeg]

@esmerelda

I have the feeling you are going to just turn on your computer and download the data to a USB flash drive.

Wait a minute. You missed a critical step. Your computers need to be cleaned inside. I clean my desktop systems every 6 months to a year using canned air. Dust blocks vents and with heat can fuse a connector.

When your tower is clean inside, you can connect a monitor and recover the data. 

[gardenman]

I just remove my old hard drives and either reuse them in a new computer, or toss them on a shelf in a closet. Your ability to destroy them is somewhat limited. The need to destroy them is also somewhat limited. If you're quite wealthy, famous, or have a stalker, destroying them is more important but the vast majority of people don't have those preconditions. While it's possible for experts to recover data from even severely damaged hard drives, it's a very expensive and specialized procedure that the average guy just can't do. 

As to backing up your data, if there's not a lot that needs backing up, you can use one of the free cloud storage options like Google Drive or Amazon's free cloud storage. With your data in the cloud it's password protected and can be accessed by you anytime you need it.