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Recycle Services

Recycle Services

We will recycle your old or defunct computers. laptops or mobile devices

recycling-h-1000x480-300x144 Recycle Services

Recycling Old Computer

Electronics donation and recycling is a great way to help conserve resources and natural materials. It is important to make sure you are donating and/or recycling electronics safely and correctly.
 We live in a world of incredible innovation in consumer technology. What’s cutting-edge now (Retina display Macbook Pro, anyone?) will likely be ho-hum only a few years down the road. We’ve all grown accustomed to the planned obsolescence of our electronics. Keeping a primary computer running smoothly for five years or longer seems like a herculean task, and very few self-respecting gamers would consider using their machine for longer than two years – at least, not without major component upgrades.

There’s undoubtedly an upshot to all this. Newer, faster, more powerful devices keep popping up, and in turn the technology we were previously perfectly happy with gets cheaper and cheaper. But there’s a darker side, too. Discarded, outdated, or broken electronics pose a serious environmental problem.

 

Wipe all personal information

While many recyclers and donation programs offer to wipe your hard drive for you, we recommend erasing all personal data yourself for safety reasons. Don’t forget to back up everything you need first!

Some beginners fall into the trap of thinking that simply deleting personal files will do the trick. This makes your data harder to find, but doesn’t erase it entirely. An experienced programmer can still retrieve it easily. Rather, we recommend fully overwriting your hard drive, preferably multiple times, and then re-installing your operating system from scratch if you need to (for instance, if you’re donating the computer). After all, physically smashing your hard drive to bits a la Office Space may be satisfying, but it still doesn’t solve the problem of environmental contaminants.
When it comes to drive-rewriting programs, the U.S. Department of Defense guidelines serve as the market standard. However, any of the following software should do the trick. Again, don’t forget to back up your files and make a backup disk of your OS before beginning!
1. Darick’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN) – Darik’s Boot and Nuke, an unsupported freeware program, gets the job done. Download the .iso file, burn it to disk, and boot your computer using DBAN after entering the BIOS screen.

2. Active@ Kill Disk – While Active@ Kill Disk comes free for basic wipes, only the paid version ($39.95) conforms to DOD standards. Don’t be fooled by the mediocre rating; most low-raters didn’t realize that this program would do what it says it does and were surprised to see their hard drive erased.

3. WipeDrive – WipeDrive is the power tool of disk overwrite utilities: not only does it conform to DOD standards, but its clients actually include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as well as the U.S. Army and Navy. However, this prowess doesn’t come free. The unpaid version only wipes 25 percent of your data, making it useless except for trials, while the full version is currently on sale for $19.95.

We at Prince’s Mobile Computer Repair will do all this for you,

Donate your computer or old devices to us and we will take care of the reclamation and recycling,

free of charge to you.