What to do with a dead laptop?

[RandyS]

On a related note, I have a CD stuck in the drive of my laptop. The drive insists that the disk is blank, but That's not true. It won't read what's on it, and now, when I push the eject button I get a message saying "insert CD into drive". I'd take a slegdehammer to the damn thing, but I don't want to ruin an otherwise perfectly good laptop.

Any thoughts?

 

[Starbreaker]

On a related note, I have a CD stuck in the drive of my laptop. The drive insists that the disk is blank, but That's not true. It won't read what's on it, and now, when I push the eject button I get a message saying "insert CD into drive". I'd take a slegdehammer to the damn thing, but I don't want to ruin an otherwise perfectly good laptop.

Any thoughts?

Swap the drive and see if that works. Or maybe just manually taking the disk out will work. You could also update the drivers. Weird stuff happens.

 

[Kestra]

On a related note, I have a CD stuck in the drive of my laptop. The drive insists that the disk is blank, but That's not true. It won't read what's on it, and now, when I push the eject button I get a message saying "insert CD into drive". I'd take a slegdehammer to the damn thing, but I don't want to ruin an otherwise perfectly good laptop.

Any thoughts?

Get a paperclip or whatever and open the drive manually. There should be some tiny hole where you can press and have the disc eject.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Regarding a dead laptop, try and save the harddrive. There are devices which will basically turn them into external drives. Then see if you can sell any other parts.

After that send it to Silicon Heaven to be with all the calculators and printers who always worked right.

 

[Stislak]

Shred the dead laptop with your fists and eat it for breakfast.



(Or sell the parts/give it to someone who would )

 

[judge alba]

nuke it from orbit

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Try Goodwill, they take in electronics for recycling; maybe they can part it out.

I strongly recommend against doing that. You'd be surprised what a young whizz hacker can pull off a dead laptop
Send it to your local recycle bin and all of a sudden some young kid has your credit card details, files from your work places, intimate holiday photos, bank details, your family etc.
MasterOfOrion Tip:
Pull out the chip, hit it a few times with a hammer, then pull the drive, finally consider recycling it after you've nuked it masteroforion style.

 

[trekkiedane]

Regarding a dead laptop, try and save the harddrive. There are devices which will basically turn them into external drives. Then see if you can sell any other parts.

Indeed, and google the how-to and make the monitor into one fancy digital picture frame

 

[RandyS]

On a related note, I have a CD stuck in the drive of my laptop. The drive insists that the disk is blank, but That's not true. It won't read what's on it, and now, when I push the eject button I get a message saying "insert CD into drive". I'd take a slegdehammer to the damn thing, but I don't want to ruin an otherwise perfectly good laptop.

Any thoughts?

Swap the drive and see if that works. Or maybe just manually taking the disk out will work. You could also update the drivers. Weird stuff happens.

I'll give swapping the drive a try. The disk drive is jammed and will not open at all. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[DBR]

Do you have a recycling program going on in your city? Here, you can take old electronics to Staples to be recycled.

 

[Roger Wilco]

At the very least remove the hard drive, buy a casing for it and use it as an external hard drive.

 

[Mistral]

At the very least remove the hard drive, buy a casing for it and use it as an external hard drive.

Yeah. Most cases are $15 or so. As for the rest of it- go to a Walgreens and buy a chia pet. Form-fit burlap over the monitor, top of case and keyboard area. Soak burlap. Sprinkle packet of seeds from chia pet liberally across burlap. Follow directions that came with chia pet for care/upkeep.