Laptop Salvage? Guides on what I need to know for Win7 (coming from XP)

So I got a new laptop and it will be here in a few days. However my old laptop still works pretty darn good. Its outdated (internally) and in the case that I dont need it (I have a desktop backup), what can I salvage and sell from it?

The HDD its self is rather cheap sold new so I doubt I will get anything for it
(Wdc wd1000bevs-22rst0).

My laptop is a Gateway MX6214 and I have upgraded the basic RAM to its max of 2gb =(

-------

I have used windows XP since it came out xxxx years ago and would like to know if there are any good guides and/or tips I should know when switching to Win 7 Premium 64bit.

Thanks!!!

 

Well the more common parts to go would be screen ect and the plastics as people tend to drop laptops but at the end of the day it totally depends on the demand and popularity of the model. HDDs will be replaced by new faster/higher capacty models anyway.

You could strip it carefully and list the components individually possibly on an auction site is your best option... or see if a website/repair center will buy it off you but don't expect much from the latter!

 

The main tip I would like to add is, NEVER sell/give away your hard drive. Nothing is ever truely ERASED off of a hard drive, and everything is recoverable (most of it EASILY recoverable), even after reformatting, etc.

There's too many people with evil intent on identity theft, etc. that can get their hands on it. Physically destroy the hard drive.

 

Windows 7 64 bit - great if you want to add double the memory , if the laptop supports it.
With your old laptop, The hard drive could be used as a backup drive, in an external caddy for your new laptop, but otherwise, I would suggest that if you wish to sell the laptop, on somewhere like ebay, remember you lose about 10% of the sale price, and older laptops vary so much in sale value, depending on bids- Better to sell the screen, ram, battery, charger, and even the keyboard, motherboard etc: seperately, otherwise you could finish up getting anything from £5 to £50 without the hard drive.- if you are lucky. I often give old ones to pre-school for the kids, and do a killdisk, before re-installing programs- most difficult for the hackers to get stuff off.

 

Thanks for all the replies! I heard that CCleaner can do a good job wiping the HDD, is that true? I also read that the FBI recommends when disposing or selling old HDD that your reformat and/or wipe the HDD at min. 3 times.

I'll try to sell the ram and all the other parts piece by piece, my screen though with one of the hinges broke can I still sell it? The screen display it's self has no flaws. No dead pixels or anything like scratches etc... and it is a 15.6 inch LED HD. I would donate it to a school or some organization if the hinge on the screen wasn't broke . If it doesn't cost to much to fix that I still might, but going by personal experience anything that involves some kind of "welding" is extremely expensive!

 

You could use dban to clean th hard drive, download from majorgeeks- the are several tools, but basically as you said overwriting three times (usually zero's and f's) does the job.I believe CCleaner will only clean out unnecessary junk- I don't use that particular tool, but many on majorgeeks do.
The broken hinge is not so critical, as the easiet way to sell the screen is complete with cables, as it is safer to pack that way when posting, That way the buyer knows its working, and just needs to replace the hinge, if necessary. The cables are often sold seperately, as are the hnges- just depends on how far you want to strip it down.

 

I can't say if it's worth your time to parcel everything out, I'd just reformat it and give to a charity.

As to W7, it's a very low learning curve since you already know XP. It just works out of the box. Main thing is to first get rid of all the trial crap. PC De-Crapifier is good for this. If it misses anything then do it manually.