Just box up all of your old computer equipment, fill out our recycling request form and then we will come and pick up all of your old computer equipment quickly and safely!
California, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, and Washington now have laws regulating where and how you can dispose of unwanted electronics. But in most others, it’s still legal to throw your computers in the trash. According to a recent 60 Minutes report, an estimated 130,000 computers end up in the garbage annually.
What does this mean for your data? Can you be sure that your private data is not going to end up in someone else's hands? Identity theft is happening at an alarming rate and we have propritary methods in complete data removal from any hard drive.
If you have upgraded to a newer computer, the first step is to back up all the data on the old computer and either copy it to your new machine or pick up an external hard drive and use that as a repository for all the old files.
Before you dispose of an old computer, make sure you wipe it clean of all your data. If this is something that you are unsure of doing then please contact us and we will walk you through this process! Most people don't realize that deleting a file doesn't actually remove the data from a computer. Research found that only 33 percent of second hand hard drives had been completely wiped clean.
When it comes to data stored on your computer, deleting files doesn't actually remove the data. File information is kept in a directory so that the operating system can find it. When you delete a file, all you are doing is removing it from the directory and flagging that part of the drive as being available for new data. Until that region is overwritten, the old data can be retrieved, in fact that's how you can recover lost data. It's also the way most file recovery programs work - they look for data on your hard drive that shouldn't be there according to the directory and restore it.
To ensure your drive doesn't contain any personal data before you give it away, sell it or recycle it, you need to reformat the hard drive or use digital shredding software if you want to completely eliminate all traces of data.
Call us today with any questions on data removal at 719-839-0627.
Comments
Risk of Recycling? Data!
I’m dealing with this issue myself now… my wife wants all of the old computer equipment out of the basement! I dutifully went and found out where I could take the old systems, but was still concerned about many other issues. One, I was going to have to pay, and pay quit a lot of money, to recycle all of my computer equipment. Also, what about the data still on the hard drives? Can’t wipe them with a program — they don’t run anymore. Can I count on the landfill to take care of that for me? Do I want to risk it? Well my answer ended up being no and so I looked into how to recycle the computer equipment myself. I then proceed to take apart every piece of equipment I owned (being in the computer and IT business for the last 15 years helps me identify what parts are salvageable and which are not) and finding a lot of re-usable or recyclable goods. This is where the dream began to start Summit PC Recycling! Not only to help the environment but to also provide an easy an safe means to dispose of your equipment as well as offer complete data destroying in the process!