This is an old PC I have. I wanted to put Linux on it and do some experiments with homelabbing, but it’s so old-it only has 512 MB RAM and around 20 GB storage, so I don’t think I can use it that efficiently.

Also, my main problem was that I couldn’t put Linux on it because it doesn’t support USB boot, and I don’t have any CD to burn nor a burner. I tried other workarounds as well, but they didn’t work. On top of that, since this PC is full of viruses, I also can’t connect it to the internet.

So, I’m just going to sell this bad boy and purchase a secondhand PC to use as a home server.

My questions are:

  1. Since USB boot doesn’t work and I can’t connect to the internet, how should I format this PC so I can sell it without any worries?
  2. Are there any precautions I should take before selling this PC?
  • CameronDev@programming.devEnglish
    3·
    15 hours ago

    Fair, seems the advice has changed. I still prefer to not sell disks, especially with all the firmware trickery that disks do. Like are bad sectors zerod? Or does the firmware skip them, potentially leaving data on the disk?

    I don’t have to worry if I just keep the disk or destroy it, so its peace of mind.

    • iocase@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      Well if you’re that paranoid set up encryption per disk so it hardware encrypts on the platter. A bad sector is just gibberish then. Wiping the encryption key effectively wipes the disk, and you can zero it out after as well. If you also don’t trust that use encryption at rest from a software side as well on top of everything.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      10 hours ago

      To be honest I used to do the same, but then recently felt safe formatting old disks to give them away. Then discovered no one wanted a 340GB drive for free, and ended up throwing it into anl container, and at the last moment I decided to whack the controller electronics for good measure ;)

      What worries me though is my growing collection of old smartphones that can’t be wiped reliably and therefore not recycled. I wouldn’t even know which chip to destroy.