Thinkpads Forum

In 2008 I thought my T42 Thinkpad drive was crashing, so I bought a Thinkcentre desktop so I could transfer all my files before I lost them, and have a computer. My hard drive didn't crash and so I seldom used the desktop. Eventually I just put it away. My Thinkpad is still going and if it does someday fail I would rather have another laptop. So I would like to sell the desktop. I just don't know how much it is worth now after a year and half, or where is best place to sell it.

It is the ThinkCentre 9979A1U and there is also a new Lenovo 19" monitor, keyboard,et. It is in like new condition with custom specifications.

Also wondering , how do you remove personal information that is stored on it?

If anyone is interested, I will post the details.

Thanks,
Sand

If you don't want the personal information stored on in, just hold down F11 on boot, select rescue & recovery, and follow the prompts to recover to factory contents. If you want the information you'll have to back it up to external media, like a flash drive.

For privacy- sell it without the hard drive. The RAM is fine as it is volatile meaning once the power is interrupted or turned off the contents are erased. Adjust the sale price for the lack of hard drive also. Quite a bit of us on this forum are pretty seasoned when it comes to tech so we have spare parts lying around (hard drives, RAM, cables, etc.) so no hard drive won't necessarily be a problem.

If you absolutely want to sell the Thinkcentre along with the hard drive- download DBAN or Killdisk. Both programs provide burnable ISO files that you can make a bootable CD with. These programs should be enough to rid your hard drive of it's contents.

Try selling it here

Put an ad in the marketplace and see how it goes. You could also part out the desktop if it came down to it. Good luck

Shipping is always going to kill on a desktop. When I've got a desktop or something else large large, I post an ad on the bulletin board at work. I suppose it would depend on how big the place you work is. There's other avenues too like CL or sometimes grocery stores have BBs. I've had good success with it, though it's not 100%. I've sold a couple computers, a couple TVs, some furniture, etc. Plus I've found people looking on a bulletin boards aren't as concerned about getting the absolute best price as they often are on the Internet.

FredGarvin wrote:There's other avenues too like CL or sometimes grocery stores have BBs.

I can attest that Craigslist is really good for selling old desktops in the $10 - $100 range. I don't know if more expensive units such as your Core 2 Duo ThinkCentre would also sell well, but it's certain worth a try.

Sand wrote:In 2008 I thought my T42 Thinkpad drive was crashing, so I bought a Thinkcentre desktop so I could transfer all my files before I lost them, and have a computer. My hard drive didn't crash and so I seldom used the desktop. Eventually I just put it away. My Thinkpad is still going and if it does someday fail I would rather have another laptop. So I would like to sell the desktop. I just don't know how much it is worth now after a year and half, or where is best place to sell it.

It is the ThinkCentre 9979A1U and there is also a new Lenovo 19" monitor, keyboard,et. It is in like new condition with custom specifications.

Also wondering , how do you remove personal information that is stored on it?

If anyone is interested, I will post the details.

Thanks,
Sand

What do you want for it?

this will wipe your data:

http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/think/thinkvan ... posal.html

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... N-SDD.html

FWIW, one alternative is to use TrueCrypt (free) to encrypt your entire system, and use it as desired.

When it comes time to sell the computer, just restore to factory specs (i.e. overwrite encrypted data with unencrypted). Any data there, while recoverable, is useless.

Seems like a very good solution. (If I'm wrong on this, I definitely want to know.)