What do you do with your old computers/laptops?

We remove the hard drive and offer the computer on freecycle.

You'd need a pretty sophisticated programme to totally delete personal details.

You can get hold of freeware that should delete the stuff to an extent where an amateur couldn't retrieve the information. Have a search at www.download.com.

There's a program that will write binary code (0 and 1) all over the hard drive, removing all previously stored info. My BIL (computer programmer) told me about it, but we haven't used it yet because you have to download it and our old laptop and old tower aren't connected to the internet.

You can download www.ccleaner.com for free which is excellent for clearing out your system, not sure how deep it goes but it always makes our PC's run faster & smoother.

Hi everyone!

Thanks for all your replies! I will let her know.

Yes I've heard thats the best way to do it and you have to overwite the hard drive 4 times (think thats the correct amount), that way even the most experienced data recovery people shouldn't be able to retrieve anything.

Remove the hard drive and smash it up with a hammer, then freecycle the rest, usually