getting rid of 2 computers, emptying them

[K515]

I'm in the process of getting rid of 2 very old computers, a 20-yr. old Packard-Bell, runs DOS 6 & Windows 3.11, comes with CRT monitor with built-in speakers, keyboard and mouse. This PC has a 4 GB hard drive, but I'm not sure how much RAM it has, and a CTX PC (purchased from local Best Buy store in late May of 1998), runs windows 95, comes with CRT monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse. This PC has been upgraded from it's original 4 GB hard drive and 32 MB RAM to a 10 GB hard drive and 64 MB RAM.

Here's pics of the computers (before my mom & I moved them):

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd225/KellySt10/100_8028.jpg

The Packard-Bell computer

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd225/KellySt10/100_8029.jpg

The CTX computer


The Packard-Bell PC came with a bunch of DOS 6 and Windows 3.11 3.5-inch floppy diskettes, plus driver floppies, a recovery floppy, (all floppies are 3.5-inch) and a couple of recovery/driver CD-Roms, as well as it's booklets and the CTX PC came with a couple of windows 95 bootable starter floppies (3.5-inch), 1 windows 95 CD-Rom and 1 "CTX" CD-Rom (I think it's the system recovery CD), as well as it's booklets.

I would like to know how do I erase the hard drives of these computers, and can anyone give me an estimate on how much they're worth - I'm selling them. Thank you very much!

[jlreich]

You can use a program like DBAN (http://www.dban.org/)to erase the hard drives.

can anyone give me an estimate on how much they're worth - I'm selling them.
I hate to tell you this but they are pretty much worthless. You might find someone that would give you $10-$20 for the both of them at a garage sale, but other than that you would be lucky to actually be able to give them away.

I have five systems sitting on my back patio, some newer than those by several years, waiting to go to the recycling center. ;) I have four more that I kept to mess around with and throw Linux on them just for fun, but I would never pay for any one of them.

I had thought of donating them to a local school or similar, but the fact is they won't take systems below a certain spec.

[mjc]

Neither one is significant...they weren't ever 'cutting edge' machines. Neither is an IBM PC/PC jr or the like, so...don't even think about doing anything with them. In most places, these days, it will cost you more to get rid of them than they are worth.

[Sylvander]

Scan this list of Puppy Linux derivatives for the smaller Puplets (http://puppylinux.org/wiki/archives/old-wikka-wikki/categoryderivative/puplets).

It would be interesting to see what could be done with your 2 systems by using the smallest Puplets.
There are people out there who routinely run Puplets on systems with very little RAM.

You could initially run a Puplet from a "live" CD, but apparently when RAM is short it's best to install to [a small partition on] the HDD or a Flash Drive, and make a small Linux swap partition on the HDD. [Puppy will look for it and use it if found]
I'm running with 256MB of RAM [a 1999 PC] and the Puppy Linux swap file is almost never used.
RAM usage is 49% right now, and CPU usage 11%; swap file not in use.
And Puppy is VERY FAST, even on this old PC!
Fast to load, fast to shut down, and fast when running.

[mjc]

That PB machine isn't even worth trying the tiniest of Pups on it...it's most likely a 486 with next to no RAM. Maybe, there is a slim chance of it being a very early Pentium, but doubtful...that machine is less capable than a modern calculator...(well, not quite, but close). It is pretty much stuck with DOS and Windows 3.11...or maybe something with a 2.2 kernel for Linux (there is a very good chance that support for it has been dropped in the 2.4 and 2.6 family of kernels).

[Paul Komski]

Hard drives and memory (for the latest systems) have come down so much in price that old stuff is all but valueless. Ironically memory for older systems is relatively expensive so the 64 MB might be of certain value for someone wanting to upgrade an older PC. Just check with a company like www.crucial.com how much the same memory would cost to buy new.

The old drives you can indeed nuke with DBAN or similar but they are little more than play things or paperweights these days - especially since it would be cheaper to buy a pen drive than an external enclosure to pop them into. Once again they might have "some value" for someone wanting to replace a small hard drive on an older BIOS; eBay could be worth a shot.

PS
Speakers (and PS/2 KBs and 'Mouses') can have some replacement value or to have around for spares. The more recent box could be used as a file server or webcam server but I can't think of any other good use for it other than experimenting with networking or some such activity. CRTs - though bulky - often last for years and years and so can be useful backup displays for when your nice shiny new LCD display goes black or white or all wobbly!! If space is of a premium then the recycling yard beckons.

[K515]

Thanks, I've downloaded dban and saved it to the desktop of my mom's computer - I downloaded the floppy diskette version, but it's size is 1.64 MB. How am I going to get a application of this size to fit on a 1.44 MB 3.5-inch floppy diskette? And how do I use this program to nuke the hard drives?

[mjc]

If I recall, the floppy version of Dban is a self-extracting, script driven file that creates a bootable disk. The actual contents that get written to the floppy are in an image file that perfectly fits a standard format disk. The rest of the download is the script and self-extraction routines.

edit: I just checked...yes, that is exactly the case, except I left out that there is some documentation included in the self-extracting file.

[K515]

Just now I put a blank floppy (3.5-inch diskette) into the a:\ drive of my mom's computer (where I'm accessing this forum from and have downloaded dban) went to My Computer > Desktop > and selected the dban image > clicked on Move > a:\ drive, but I got a message that it's too big to fit on a floppy diskette. What am I supposed to do?

[mjc]

Just run the exe...it will open a window with the instructions and how to continue.

[K515]

just now i double clicked on the dban's desktop icon to run it, and when i tried to install it onto the a drive, i got a redundancy error. what do i do now?

[Paul Komski]

Redundancy errors (cyclic redundancy errors) usually mean that the media is bad. So try another, preferably a brand new, floppy diskette.

[K515]

It turned out that I was sort of bending the diskette a teeny tiny bit while inserting it into drive a - but after I popped it back out and tried inserting it straight into the drive a:\ a second time and tried to install the dban onto it, I had success - I successfully got my dban installed onto the floppy.

Why does it give me an error when I bend the floppy diskette a tiny bit while inserting the diskette into drive a:\?

[mjc]

It is probably pinching the actual magnetic disk and causing it not to spin properly...

[K515]

hello - it looks like i'll be giving both computers to my girlfriend's teenaged kids - they don't even have a computer to call their own (except the eldest girl, who has a laptop)

[K515]

i've used this dban you found for me to erase the hard drives of both of these 2 computers yesterday, and just now i'm trying to recover the ctx system in the ctx pc using the original ctx system recovery cd that came with this pc. the computer booted off of this cd and i got 2 choices: 1: recover the system, and 2: create a startup floppy diskette. first i tried choice # 1, and the computer gave me this message: "invalid drive specification. general failure writing drive c:\. abort, retry, fail." next, i tried rebooting from the original windows 95 startup boot floppy that came with the computer, and...well anyway our neighbor came and fiddled with the computer a bit, i don't know exactly what he did, i wasn't watching him, so anyway, he succeeded in getting to the a:\ prompt from another windows 95 startup floppy diskette (a gray spare one i had on hand). then he have to go home. next, i saw this a:\ prompt, and tried typing "setup" <enter> only to get a "bad command or file name". next, i tried typing "install" at the a:\ prompt <enter>, and got another "bad command or file name." Could you please tell me how I'm supposed to get the windows 95 (this came with the computer originally) system back into this computer?

[K515]

well guys, after i put dos 6 and windows 3.11 back into the packard-bell, i had an idea, and this idea was to install dos 6 onto the ctx, and then i used the ctx system recovery cd to put windows 95 back onto the ctx computer.
success, success, success! now i'm going to celebrate by eating some e.l. fudge cookies - one of my favorite kind of cookies! come celebrate with me, please?