What to do with two old desktop pc's advice?

sparkyb · 7 Apr 2018 at 20:23

Hi,

Please can you give me some advice;

I have got two old Packard Bell desktop PC's that have been stored in my house and unused for years. They have been formatted back to factory settings and have the original master discs, operating CD's, manuals etc.

I don't have any use for them anymore, but I have no idea what to do with them? I don't think they are worth anything to sell on ebay. What would you recommend to do with them, is this the sort of thing I can take the skip, sell or give away?

Thank you

Delta3D · 7 Apr 2018 at 20:39

What specs are they? If they are any decent for general web use etc, I'd say completely erase the disks (DBAN or something alike) and donate to charity

sparkyb · 7 Apr 2018 at 21:03

Delta3D said:
What specs are they? If they are any decent for general web use etc, I'd say completely erase the disks (DBAN or something alike) and donate to charity

Hi, thank you, that's a good idea. I cant remember the specs, but will have a look tomorrow. One is running xp and the other is Windows 98 from 95, I think its a Pentium 1? I tried to do a DBAN on the xp desktop, but it didn't work as it wouldn't recognise the file type?

It did cross my mind to remove the hdd of the xp desktop and use it as a back up disc. At some point I was planning on reinstalling Windows 7 on my main pc and need to do a back up. Which will save me some money. Would this work do you think?

Habakkuk · 7 Apr 2018 at 22:22

They're sufficiently old enough to only be of interest for comparability or data recovery purposes - check the hard drives value after DBAN'ing them.

mattyfez · 9 Apr 2018 at 19:16

You could repurpose the hdds as back up drives if they are a reasonable size.
Mind you if they are IDE drives rather than sata.. Not much good.
It doesn't sound like the rest is worth doing anything with though.

Pocah · 10 Apr 2018 at 09:57

I tend to leave working PC's intact, even though it makes little sense! You could offer them up here on the forum for anyone who wants to pay for P&P, who might have some use for them such as a media PC or the basis of a cheap home NAS.

sparkyb · 10 Apr 2018 at 20:18

mattyfez said:
You could repurpose the hdds as back up drives if they are a reasonable size.
Mind you if they are IDE drives rather than sata.. Not much good.
It doesn't sound like the rest is worth doing anything with though.

I have had a look at the HDD this evening and its the following;

Seagate Barracuda
7200.7
120gb
ultra ATA
IDE

I don't remember how old the PC is, but I think at a guess it must be about 15 years old (it's running XP if that's a clue to the age)?

My current Windows 7 PC has 1No HDD, I am pretty sure its sata.

Will I be able to attach the old drive to my current one as a back up?

Thank you

Habakkuk · 12 Apr 2018 at 05:40

If your motherboard has IDE sockets yes, but they're still going to be slow&noisy.

sparkyb · 12 Apr 2018 at 23:06

Habakkuk said:
If your motherboard has IDE sockets yes, but they're still going to be slow&noisy.

Thank you. I have had a look at the specs of my motherboard and it doesn't have ide sockets. My parents might have just for web surfing. They have a similar pc but it broke years ago.

d_brennen · 12 Apr 2018 at 23:37

Retro gaming PCs

Sao_Sin · 13 Apr 2018 at 16:10

Charity or school (though schools on the whole generally have pretty good PCs). Not tempted to install linux and run a home server on one of them?

EsaT · 13 Apr 2018 at 17:37

sparkyb said:
Seagate Barracuda
7200.7

I don't remember how old the PC is, but I think at a guess it must be about 15 years old (it's running XP if that's a clue to the age)?

Yep, that's about it.
And those drives are insanely slow.
STR is likely around 1/10th of current drives...

sparkyb said:
My parents might have just for web surfing.

Considering age and likely not the best parts even as new it would likely struggle to do even that.
Unless you used hosts-file, add blockers and script blockers to cut crap from web pages.

K.C. Leblanc · 13 Apr 2018 at 23:45

Sao_Sin said:
Charity or school (though schools on the whole generally have pretty good PCs). Not tempted to install linux and run a home server on one of them?

I used to look after IT in a school. We were throwing out better machines then this 7 years ago.

The sad truth is the best place for them is the local tip. At least they'll get recycled.

sparkyb · 15 Apr 2018 at 16:43

K.C. Leblanc said:
I used to look after IT in a school. We were throwing out better machines then this 7 years ago.

The sad truth is the best place for them is the local tip. At least they'll get recycled.

Hi, thank you all. You've all been very helpful.

To be honest I don't think my parents will use it after all and I probably wont use it again. Its got a good PSU that I bought as a replacement, which I can probably make a little bit of money out of on ebay. So I think the best option will be the tip.

I've got all the original packard bell set up master cds. I am not sure, but I think they are linked with the motherboard? Will these be useless on ebay without the motherboard?

andy_mk3 · 15 Apr 2018 at 16:44

d_brennen said:
Retro gaming PCs

This, that era of hardware is quite well sought after for retro gaming

almoststew1990 · 16 Apr 2018 at 19:57

sparkyb said:
Hi,

Please can you give me some advice;

I have got two old Packard Bell desktop PC's that have been stored in my house and unused for years. They have been formatted back to factory settings and have the original master discs, operating CD's, manuals etc.

I don't have any use for them anymore, but I have no idea what to do with them? I don't think they are worth anything to sell on ebay. What would you recommend to do with them, is this the sort of thing I can take the skip, sell or give away?

Thank you

The older one will be of interest to retro gamers as others have said. I'd be tempted to put it on sale somewhere or give it to me