Laptop Hard Drive Disposal

mjnc · Dec 29, 2016

Thank you all for your responses.
Sorry I did not get back right away. I've been occupied with other things.
My estimated count was way off. There are at least 200 of the 5 1/4 inch floppies alone.

plodr said: ↑

We got rid of most 3.5" floppies a few years ago. I loaded the floppies on the computer and used a program to join if a program required 2 or more floppies to install. Then I archived the contents of the floppies on a huge 80GB "portable" Western Digital hard drive.
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I like the idea of transferring some of the data to an external hard drive. Currently, I don't have one, but a thumb drive might work.

Eldon said: ↑

Use a pair of scissors for the 5.25 inch floppies, and a pair of tinsnips for the 3.5 inch "stiffies", and cut them in 4 pieces.
Then take them to an e-cycle place.
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Investing in some appropriate clippers could be a good option.

Digerati said: ↑

A big 10lb magnet sitting on top of the floppies overnight will take care of them. I have one from an old sub-woofer that works great.

5 1/4 inch floppies (because they don't have any metal) can also be run through most paper shredders. Certainly any shredder designed to eat CDs and credit cards can handle them.
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I don't have any large magnets. The only speakers I have, except two Altec-Lansing computer speakers, are a pair of Bose 901 series II, in near mint condition BTW.
Dumping them into a shredder would work well. Maybe one of the recycling places has one that can do that.

Eldon · Dec 30, 2016

mjnc said: ↑

I like the idea of transferring some of the data to an external hard drive. Currently, I don't have one, but a thumb drive might work.
Click to expand...

A thumb drive is all you need.

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Laptop Hard Drive Disposal

mjnc MajorGeek

Eldon Major Geek Extraordinaire