Hands-On Tech 237 Transcript
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. Let's take a look at what to do when a computer is so old that there's really nothing you can do with it except get rid of it. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to this spooky episode of Hands-On Tech. It is October. Happy October to you. And today we are kicking things off with a question from a lovely listener who wants to know what to do with some old machines.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:36]:
Let's take a look at this question from Lori. Lori writes, I have had many Macs over the years and I need to get rid of them safely. Some are as old as the G3 and G4 and G5, and one is an iMac 2013 that just stopped working one day. I know I could remove the hard drives from the towers, but the iMac is closed. Is it secure to send the iMac to Apple to recycle or will they even take it? How about the older Macs are the tower case? Should RAM be removed? If the computer starts, should I erase the drives? Thanks in advance for your answers. I really need to clear up some storage space and those old computers are taking up a lot of room. This is a great question and also coming from our discord pal. Hello, Laurie.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:24]:
Thank you so much for asking this question. So love this question. And it's something that I think is important for anyone to kind of take a moment, look around and go, you know, I've really been holding onto this and I realize I'm not going to be doing anything with it, so why not get rid of it? When it comes to machines that are still in working order, I always recommend if you aren't planning on holding onto it yourself, looking around for local programs for donating older machines, there are often lots of opportunities, perhaps at your local library, perhaps at a local school where these machines can be taken and repurposed. And so that's something to bear in mind. But when you've got machines that are so old that it's kind of like, okay, this is getting into junk territory. You should first and foremost understand that most of the devices that come from Apple, Apple will take back for recycling. It's a little hard to find this page because you are looking at, and I'm going to explain in a moment a different page and going, wait, so this is also the page where I find the recycling stuff? Yes, if you go to Apple's trade in page, that's@apple.com shop trade in, we'll have a link in the show notes. You could also probably Do a Google search for Apple trade in or a web search for Apple trade in and you'd find it.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:54]:
And you will see that the last option because it shows iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac, Android. The last option is recycling on this page. And when you click on that, Apple will ask you what it is that you're trying to recycle. You tell it that you are trying to recycle a computer in this case, and it will then provide you with an option to recycle it by giving you a prepaid shipping label. Now here's what's important to understand about this. When it comes to recycling old tech. Apple actually has a company that it works with called ERI, which is Electronic Recyclers International. And ERI.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:38]:
ERI is the company facilitating these electronics recycling options. But here's what's great about it. According to ERI, it's the most certified ITAD company in North AmERIca. That just means it disposal, getting rid of those devices and has lots of compliance. And in fact ERI is responsible for recycling like medical e waste and all, you know, businesses, all sorts of stuff. So working with ERI, you are working with a company that has certifications and continues to be certified in you being able to send off your stuff and not worry about the data. That said, that said, I can understand having the little bit of anxiety that sending it off with data intact could mean that somehow your data is pulled from it. And so there are ways to go about taking care of that.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:42]:
Before I get to that though, I do want to quickly mention something that I've heard come up quite a bit with people getting new phones and you know, new phones every two years, every one year, in some cases, every three. Whatever it happens to be, you get a new case each time, right, for that device. Apple, via that same mechanism, that trade in page where you go to recycling will also take old cell phone cases, old iPhone cases. So if you have old cases that you're no longer using, they're no longer part of a phone anymore. You've traded in the phone, but the case is still there. Apple will take those by way of ERI and have those recycled as well. So bear that in mind. There are lots of options for tech recycling, as I mentioned, even Android devices that you may not be able to get a trade in value for web but would be something that could be sent in.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:34]:
I have used this process before and it was very easy box it up myself and put the little label on there that they provided to me, sent it off. I think it was ups, if I remember correctly. And all good to go. So let's talk about what it means when it comes to your 2013 iMac. You said it won't start and if you can't get it to start so you therefore can't erase it yourself. And some options for you. You could take it to a local computer repair shop and have that shop remove the drive and then give you the drive. They can be opened.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:12]:
And so that could be something that you do. That way you have the drive, you can either choose to erase it yourself or you can keep it as a backup. Another option I've linked to in the show notes or we will link to in the show notes. Apple or I mean not Apple, but iFixit's guide for a hard drive replacement on an intel iMac from 2013, it's not really that much of a difference whenever it comes to this, for it to be the 21.5 inch or I think the 27 inch at the time, because the basic process of what you were trying to do is going to be the same. So if you wanted to, Laurie, if you felt up to the task, you could follow along with this hard drive replacement guide up to the point where the hard drive is visible and available to you. You take out the hard drive and you handle it from there, however you choose. You know, whether you put it into another machine or you go about erasing it or destroying it completely physically destroying it. However you need to do that to be able to gain access to that.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:20]:
But again, I mentioned that you can send it to Apple as is because those recycling partners are required to handle data destruction properly. And you know, have a, have that sort of backing of these different certifications when it comes to data destruction. For the G3, G4, G5 power Macs, if they do start up, yes, go in and erase the drives first. You can boot from the os. You can use the install disk if you need to, to use Disk utility to a secure erase. So that's taking things a step further. Instead of just doing the base erase process, it actually is going to write data to the drive and that data is just kind of zeroing out everything that's on the drive. For Mac OS 9 and earlier, you can use a utility that comes from Norton called Wipe Info.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:15]:
So that's another option for you as well. And then because these drives are so old and there's not much data on them, it's a little bit faster than you have with your modern machines of trying to erase the data on, you know, a Terabyte of hard drive space. You can also, as you mentioned, open up the tower, pull open the side panel, take the drives out, and then physically destroy them, keep them as backups. Whatever you want to do with the drives, that choice is up to you. But you have better access to those. If you like what you heard and you want more of this week's top stories in tech, well, subscribe to Tech News Weekly. Every Thursday, I talk with the journalists making and breaking the tech news. Now, you also asked about the ram.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:03]:
First and foremost, ram, by its very nature is not a storage component. It is a. It is a place where data exists on it so long as it is powered. And when it is no longer powered, that data is not there. So that data goes away when it's powered off. Which means that in terms of data security, privacy, you don't have to worry about that. But it could be that this RAM has some resale value. So I would check something like eBay to see if this Mac RAM is worth anything because there could be people out there with G5s.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:48]:
Those seem to be popular as kind of devices that people want to hold on to. And so they're looking for ram for their G5s. So you could get something from that potentially. But if you do leave it in, it will be recycled because they'll be able to recover precious metals from the RAM. Now, as far as the tower cases themselves, G3 and G4 cases, not really worth much. Looked into it, I was seeing stuff from like 10 to $30, right? G5 cases, a little bit more valuable because they are of interest to enthusiasts. So potentially 50 to $100, they are made of aluminum. People like G5S, people do things with G5S, mod them and all that kind of a thing.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:36]:
So yes, you can make a little bit more from that, basically. Once again, check eBay to look for G5 cases, G3 cases, G4 cases that have been sold, and use that to kind of inform the current market value is for that. So there are some options for you, Lori, in terms of potentially getting something back from it. But in the end, Apple and ERI can take them off of your hands. So let's kind of do a little rewind recap moment. Erase any drives that you can via software, physically remove drives from the towers. If you want absolute security, the 2013 IMAC can go to Apple recycling as is, or use a local computer repair company to get the drive out, or use Lori's computer repair company to get the drive out using that iFixit guide check for the RAM and the G5 case values before getting rid of those in case you are looking to get something from it. And then you can also look to other companies.
Mikah Sargent [00:11:44]:
Best Buy is another example of a place where you will often have electronics recycling. But I am not aware of their specific policies on data protection. I would imagine that they also say that they have lots of data protection in place. That is something, you know, that you just have to bear in mind. I also wanted to mention. I forgot to mention it up at the top. Apple does have a page that is specific for helping you find E cycle centers near you. So that's, you know, electronics recycling centers near you.
Mikah Sargent [00:12:22]:
So you can actually, if your state is one of the places listed, you can click on it and then learn about local places where you can recycle electronics. So it's a little bit easier than having to send it in. But there are quite a few options available to you Laurie, when it comes to recycling your older Macs. Now with that, I want to mention a great little follow up from Kevin. Kevin had written in to ask me about Windows ESU, which was the ability to continue to use Windows 10 and have an extension on the security updates. And so Windows extended security updates, giving Kevin the ability to keep using Windows 10 for just a little bit longer. There was supposed to be a way to use some of the points that Kevin had earned over time to have this option show up to actually go into this Windows 10 ESU mode and be able to continue again to use Windows 10 with security updates in place. For some reason it wasn't showing up.
Mikah Sargent [00:13:41]:
Looked into it and provided some options to Kevin. Kevin wrote back with this so listen, if you're a person with Windows 10 who's not ready to jump to Windows 11 and wants to make use of Windows 10 ESU, Kevin says hello Mikah, thanks for answering my questions on the show. I couldn't contact Microsoft on why I didn't get the ESU option. I found several people online who said if they signed up for the Windows Insider program, they got the ESU invitation instantly. I signed up. You have to be signed in as an admin, so bear that in mind. Then immediately went to check for updates and there was the ESU option. Had I not done that, I don't think I would have gotten the option.
Mikah Sargent [00:14:24]:
With days left, thought you might want to tell others. So there's a little pro tip from Kevin. If you are trying to gain access to the Windows 10 ESU and it is still not showing up for you and you can't get in touch with Microsoft, then this is what you should try. Join the Windows Insider program which you can do from that same section in the Windows app for this and then from there it's supposed to kind of click in place and give you access to that ESU option. So thank you Kevin for writing in with that. I appreciate it and hopefully that helps someone else out there who's going. I just want to keep using Windows 10 for a little while longer. I respect it and I am glad that there is a solution.
Mikah Sargent [00:15:12]:
All right with that, if you can believe it, we have reached the end of this episode of Hands-On Tech. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. If you have questions for me, if you need your questions answered, reach out. Hot TV is how you get in touch. I look forward to hearing from you and answering your questions again next week. Bye bye.
