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I have an inoperable PC laptop (motherboard died twice in two years). I'd like to get rid of it. All of my important files were backed up onto flashdrive and re-loaded onto my new PC desktop computer. There's nothing I need from the laptop hard drive. I will remove the hard drive before recycling the laptop.
Is there anything useful I could do with the hard drive from the laptop? Can the laptop hard drive be connected to the desktop for extra storage? Or should I just destroy the hard drive?
If it's large enough to be useful you could slap it in a USB enclosure and use it for backup. Or assuming it and your desktop are both SATA you could install it internally in your desktop and use it for storage.
If you are going to dispose of it hook it up to existing computer and run DBAN on it.
If you don't want to go through that take it apart, take out the platter and throw it away separately from the housing. That won't prevent the data from being read but it won't be so conspicuous and makes recovery much harder for the average person. Even if someone was actually looking for something like that they probably wouldn't bother. Throw it in a old chip bag or something so it's not easily seen.
All sorts of things. Strip it down, keep the neodymiums and sell the rest off as scrap. Blowtorch it. Wire the motor to a variac and put ~250VAC across it. Connect it to a 5/12 power supply, drop it into containers of mineral oil, gas and water and see if the platter motor has enough torque to get up to speed in each. Take it for a spin-cycle-of-death in a front-loading washer with concrete counterweights removed.
Or if totally at a loss, imagine yourself in Photonicinduction's boots. (By the way, where's Photon BEEN lately?) Or just ask yourself "what would Aussie50 do?".
If nothing else, turning the platters, O-rings rings and spindle caps into windchimes is always an option...
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