A couple of days ago I turned up a long retired HP desktop in the roof and decided that it might as well go. But having moderately careful habits in that department, I wanted to be sure that any data on the disc, some of which might be interesting someone else, was deleted. And the only way that I know to be sure is to physically damage the disc, to actually get inside the thing and damage the disc platters. Which I am fairly sure destroys quite a lot of the content and makes it far too expensive to be worthwhile to get back any that might be left. No doubt a disc engineer would be able to explain how all this works properly.
Not many ordinary screws to be seen from the outside, but I take a screwdriver to those that I can see. Nothing happens. Eventually I find the trick which lifts the side panel off, revealing a base board with lots of small components and small number of large components sitting on top. One being what I think is the power supply, far left in the snap above. Another what looks like a heat sink on top of the processing chip, a sort of miniature version of the cooling arrangements for a motor car. Another being a fan. And a fourth being what turns out to be the CD drive - although I might have worked that out a bit quicker had I bothered to take another look at the front. And last but not least, the disc drive under the CD drive.
A few more ordinary screws which I take out. A lot more special screws which need a special screwdriver which I do not have. A few plugs which I can pull out. But I can't get the CD drive out.
So out with the wrecking bar and after a little while the CD drive slides out of its housing, revealing the disc drive under. What is left of it being in the centre of the snap above.
More wrecking bar action, snip a few cables and out it comes, about the size of a five pack of Villiger cigars, as sold by the likes of Tesco and Waitrose.
There is a top plate, but not a plate that I am able to remove. So it is now time to take a hacksaw to the unit as a whole and I make several deep cuts, more or less to the axle of what I take to be the single disc platter. Various bits and bobs of electromechanical machinery visible at this point.
PC now ready for the tip up Blenheim Road, otherwise the Epsom Community Recycling Centre. There must be a simpler, less destructive way to do all this, but would it have been worth finding out? Would an old desktop, more or less intact, more or less in working order, have had any resale value?
Incidentally, the tip is very convenient for us, but part of an area which some people have redevelopment eyes on. Arguing that it is better to build over busy industrial estates near the centre of Epsom than over moribund agricultural estates on the periphery. Another complicated planning issue, complications which were alluded to yesterday at the start of reference 1.
PS: checking the spelling of Villiger, I was interested to find at reference 2 that they sell all sorts of fancy cigars, as well as the ordinary ones that I once bought. Fancy enough and lucrative enough to build a reasonably complicated website. Although not as complicated as those put up by the big alcohol companies, not yet in the same pariah league as the tobacco gentry. Odd that I have never come across this side of Villiger before: perhaps one would have to go to Switzerland for that. I place I don't suppose I am ever going to get to, the Isle of Wight being quite enough of an adventure these days. Or, at a stretch, Dartmoor.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/to-beach.html.
Reference 2: https://www.villigercigars.com/en/.
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