I'm getting rid of my old (old old oooold) PC clone desktop.
First, I wanted to see if I could donate it before I brought it to the county recycling center, but places that take donated computers have minimum system requirements (understandable). I think my computer already fails on RAM and memory (despite having two hard drives) but I'm still curious whether the processor is good enough. The place with what appears to be the lowest standards (and also the most conveniently located for me to drop things off) asks for Pentium III or better or equivalent. Anyone know if an AMD Athlon processor is equivalent to a Pentium III? (Google is so not helping with this. I just get old forum threads discussing which manufacturer's processor is better for gaming vs. regular use.)
Second, any idea how to wipe the hard drives if I can't get the computer to boot from a CD? The instructions I've read say to use the Windows CD to format the hard drive and/or use some downloaded software to completely purge everything. Problem is, these methods involve booting from a disk/CD/flash drive but the computer won't run setup when it starts even though I press the appropriate key (and a bunch of other keys.) I've tried simply putting in the Windows CD and double clicking on Startup.exe but it doesn't give me formatting or partitioning as an option.
At this point, I'm about ready to grab a screwdriver and physically remove the drives and see if I can find a place that will shred them.
Fair warning for anyone offering explanations: I'm no computer whiz. (Although I feel like I used to be better at this sort of thing. I used to know how to use DOS for goodness sake and now I'm like "Bwuh?" at every part of this process. What happened to me?)
Trying to wipe and get rid of a computer
First, I wanted to see if I could donate it before I brought it to the county recycling center, but places that take donated computers have minimum system requirements (understandable). I think my computer already fails on RAM and memory (despite having two hard drives) but I'm still curious whether the processor is good enough. The place with what appears to be the lowest standards (and also the most conveniently located for me to drop things off) asks for Pentium III or better or equivalent. Anyone know if an AMD Athlon processor is equivalent to a Pentium III? (Google is so not helping with this. I just get old forum threads discussing which manufacturer's processor is better for gaming vs. regular use.)
Second, any idea how to wipe the hard drives if I can't get the computer to boot from a CD? The instructions I've read say to use the Windows CD to format the hard drive and/or use some downloaded software to completely purge everything. Problem is, these methods involve booting from a disk/CD/flash drive but the computer won't run setup when it starts even though I press the appropriate key (and a bunch of other keys.) I've tried simply putting in the Windows CD and double clicking on Startup.exe but it doesn't give me formatting or partitioning as an option.
At this point, I'm about ready to grab a screwdriver and physically remove the drives and see if I can find a place that will shred them.
Fair warning for anyone offering explanations: I'm no computer whiz. (Although I feel like I used to be better at this sort of thing. I used to know how to use DOS for goodness sake and now I'm like "Bwuh?" at every part of this process. What happened to me?)