Questions about Apple recycling.

[rgG]

So, I am trying to declutter and, you will be shocked, I have some old Apple tech lying around.
I do not feel like disassembling all the laptops and minis, etc, that I need to get rid of to get to the HDs.
Some might boot up, but others are toast.
Apple says they wipe your personal info from stuff they recycle, but for old stuff that won’t even boot, should I be worried about data theft?
I mean, would any self respecting thief even look at trying to retrieve info off really old tech anyway?

[TheTominator]

I think that a lot of tech disposal places are likely to have people who are adept at quickly extracting working hard drives from otherwise unusable machines and connecting those drives to dedicated data extraction stations. Where's there's some money to be had, there are people in the world who work in volume to extract your data and sell it for money.

So yes. I would take the extra steps to erase or otherwise make the drive unreadable before handing it off to someone to harvest.

[Tiangou]

Extract and destroy the HDs.

https://forums.macresource.com/read.php?...53,2833140

[Microman]

I bought 3 MacBooks , 2 Pros, and one just MacBook. Years 2011 approximately. Initially only one would boot. But after a few days of tinkering. All would boot. I would see that they came from the same family. Pictures etc. Nothing really personal, I guess. But did contact the family, who was shocked as they had turned them into a recycler that was suppose to clean them up. Instead, I guess they gave them to a guy on craigslist to sell to me.

[rgG]

Ugh. I really don’t want to deal with this. Lol
Some are laptops, clamshells, that I moved with me 7 years ago because I got tired of pulling HDs and drilling holes in them.
Maybe I will try to do one a week, till I get done. :RollingEyesSmiley5:
Guess I may be making more “old tech artwork,” like I did the last time.

[D-Rod]

Can you figure where the drive sits and drill right through the case and the drive?

[rgG]

D-Rod wrote:
Can you figure where the drive sits and drill right through the case and the drive?

Good idea. I’ll have to check into that.

[RgrF]

I took my first Mac in trade for some legal work. It was a Mac+ that came from a McDonnell Douglas subcontractor, every single project he worked on was just sitting there waiting to be pirated - idjit!!!

[graylocks]

i wipe data and take my recycling to the Apple store. i trust them.

[rgG]

graylocks wrote:
i wipe data and take my recycling to the Apple store. i trust them.

I think, with the ones that will boot, that will be fine for me, too, but the “it’s dead Jim ones,” I guess I’ll need to pull the drive.