Donating used PC's

I run an IT consulting shop and seem to collect retired PC's. I have probably a dozen PC's (no monitor or keyboard). That I'll either be sending to the recycler as normal or I've been looking for a good charity.

I normally take an 8lb sledge to the harddrives when I recycle but these machines are good enough for basic Internet/email type of work that I'd consider donating them. It simply takes me a lot more work to make sure the drives are wiped appropriately so I normally don't do it.

If anyone on the board has a need personally or knows of a good cause let me know.

Rex

http://lifebyte.org/

I work with this ministry. They are an outreach of Colorado Community Church in Aurora.

Depending what hardware (P4 or better) you could install PCLinuxOS for free and have operating PCs to donate.

The installation will format the hard drives and solve the security issues.

Mostly Dell OptiPlex 170's. I have vaild XP pro licenses for each so I'll likely just image. At times I just wipe the drive and let the new owner deal with reinstalling whatever they want. OEM license key is on the box. Unfortunately all the original discs were tossed before I could grab them.

We triage the machines for specs that are worth rebuilding. All hard drives are wiped using DBAN, then loaded with either XP or Win7 and a common application suite (currently Libre Office) and anti-virus (AVG). There is an established waiting list of people and organizations who have expressed a desire and need for these refurbed machines. Once there are sufficient rebuilt PCs we do a distribution day where people come in and are shown how to set up the PC once they get it home. Each PC comes with a monitor, keyboard, mouse, mouse pad, and power strip. The recipient is also given a point of contact if they have any problems or questions.

The stuff that isn't rebuilt or reused goes to a recycler who has handled literally tons of electronics for us.

Our OS licenses are through the Microsoft Reseller program for non-profit organizations. Depending on the number of machines you have to donate, I could get you an email address to arrange for the machines to be picked up. PM me if you would like contact information.

As cstone mentions, make sure you DBAN the disks in advance. You download the .iso file for free, burn it as a bootable CD, start the machine up with it, and wipe the hard drive to DoD spec.

It's probably safe to use the quick-wipe method. The reason for doing it is to prevent anyone from recovering files and attempting to steal your identity with that information.

H.

DBAN is a good tool. I use it plus several others. I'm generally lazy thats why I use an 8lb sledge most of the time. Its some of the only physical activity that I get plus its a good release of frustrations.
cstone, shoot me a PM and we'll work out something. I have to wipe everything before they leave my shop so it'll take me a little time to get them ready. I know you wipe them also but I can't let them leave my shop with anything on them.
Rex

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeadElephant

I know you wipe them also but I can't let them leave my shop with anything on them.

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And all was right with the netsec gods.

H.