Donating Or Giving Away a Computer? Follow These 5 Steps First

Is your laptop or desktop computer is running slow, and not to handle the tasks and games, good enough for your current needs? Does the latest and greatest applications slow down your system to crawl? If so, it May be time to buy a new computer - but what can you do with your old machine, except that the dumping of garbage?

• Many charities and schools can put the old computer to good use as teaching aids or provide less fortunate.
• A friend or family member might be able to use an older computer.
• Is your computer for many years and do not generally useful? After removing any useful parts, you May want to recycle computer, which is better for the environment than sending it to the dump.

Unfortunately, donating or giving away your old computer should not be treated as giving away a simple kitchen appliance, TV, DVD player, or some other piece of equipment. Computers are important files you need a backup, and information that you would not want the public to see. So, before you give or donate the old machine, be sure to follow these five steps first:

1) Backup and remove all the relevant information
Backup and remove all the necessary information from your computer, including documents, spreadsheets, music, photos and video clips. Archive e-mail stored on the computer. Do you have an important bookmark for a web site? Export or copy them for later use. Have you stored the password on any machine, such as web accounts? Them back and remove them as well.
2) Leave Nothing attached to or within the
Test your CD / DVD drive (s) to ensure that you have not left music, DVD, disk system restore, disk setup program, or other media in your machine. Verify that no USB flash drives or other devices are attached.
3) the deduction? Recording Specifications of the first
Depending on your area of tax regulations and filing status, you May be able to deduct part of the fair market value of your computer, if it is approved to be donated to charity. If so, make sure you take your computer specifications as the fair market value can be determined. This includes, but is not limited to:
* CPU type and speed
* RAM
* Graphics Card
* Sound Card
* Hard disk (s) space and speed
This article does not give tax advice, so be sure to consult your tax advisor, accountant, lawyer or local deduction rules.
4) Wipe Your Hard Drive Clean
No matter how well you scrub your hard drive for personal or business files, traces may remain on your computer. In addition, normal file deletion does not immediately remove the files from your hard drive, but it hides so that the operating system does not see the pictures, the space used by deleted files is detected as needed. Therefore, to prevent others from reading your files or accidentally or file undeletion software, you should wipe the disk clean before donating or giving away.
* For business or medical experts, this step is absolutely vital, as the business may be liable if the private customer data located and distributed to the wrong hands.
* If you do not use your laptop for work, it still may contain information that does not want others to see, such as medical records, finance, tax information, etc.
Unfortunately, wiping the drive clean will remove operating system such as Windows, so if you plan on donating a machine, be sure to include the recovery discs as well (as they do not contain personal information), so the recipient can reinstall the operating system. Without them, the recipient may have to buy a new operating system in order to actually use the machine.
Formatting the hard disk itself will not do - hard drive should be completely wiped, and more passes are recommended to prevent file recovery. Although the author of the article does not recommend any particular hard disk wipe software, there are several, including "CMRR - Secure Delete", "Darik's boot and Nuke" and "DriveScrubber (R )".
Make sure before you make the drive to delete all the files and information were previously backed up, and the use of these tools makes it very difficult if not impossible, to recover your data!
5) Reinstall
If you are donating the machine and system recovery discs, you May want to go ahead and reinstall the operating system. If you are very nice, go ahead and install all the patches for the O / S and the relevant software.
There are many ways one can give an old computer, including recycling and donation to charity. However, you should not get rid of your machine without first performing a few basic tips household. Backup and remove all the important information because once you give your computer away, you will have access to your data. Make sure the inserted media and devices. Recording of relevant information if your goal is to get tax relief for donations. Wipe your hard drive (a) clean so that personal or business information will not escape into the wild. And if you plan on donating coffee, go ahead and reinstall the operating system from the recovery discs. With these steps, you can feel good about donating your machine, or helping the environment by recycling, and you can feel better knowing that you helped to protect the privacy or your company.