How to Sell or Donate a Computer

We've all been there. The computer you spent thousands on a year or two ago is now a dinosaur worth pennies on the dollar. Don't toss it in the trash--it contains toxic materials that shouldn't go in landfills. Here's how to recycle, donate or sell it to recoup some of your cash.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

1. Uninstall any applications you plan to use on your next computer. (Make sure you have the installation disks and serial numbers.)

2. Purge the computer of all personal information. It's not enough to drag documents to the Trash. Use a utility program to permanently delete or overwrite sensitive documents, then reformat the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. Professional data-recovery firms can also do this.

3. Collect the original software disks and manuals for the operating system that came with the computer.

4. Find out what your computer is worth by following online auctions, then put it up for auction too, or go through the classifieds. Don't expect to rake it in; old computers aren't worth much.

5. Donate the computer to a school, charity or recycling center. Recyclers may charge a fee. Get a receipt for tax purposes.

Tips & Warnings

• Experts recently found credit card numbers, medical records, and financial data on random hard drives bought at online auctions. To truly purge your hard drive of sensitive information, destroy it with a hammer. This will decrease your computer's resale value, but increase your peace of mind.

[sabrina22]

on 7/1/2009 Donate to Computer Aid International- a great scheme that donates computers to developing countries
http://www.computeraid.org/

[BlueOx]

on 10/24/2008 Great tips.

[celebritynow]

on 1/29/2007 Thanks! I would not have thought to donate my old computer to a school; my daughter goes to Pre-School. I'm going to ask them if they have room for it; they don't have any computers there now. I'm sure that they will probably find a way to make the room... as these 4 year olds are better on the computer than I am! Thanks again!

on 2/10/2006 Deleting only tells Windows to pretend it isn't there. Formatting is a little different, but it doesn't actually remove the data, either.

Use Darik's Boot and Nuke to actually destroy the data on any internal drive. I don't have the address handy, but I am certain that Google does.

DBAN is 100% free. But please send him a donation as an encouragement to develop the program to include USB and other networked drives before I need to wipe one.