Scrubbing an old Hard Drive?

[Merlin Oleson-p40]

I have used 5.5 to scrub the old computers without reinstalling MLS or Symantec. It leaves the comprter usable to give away with user frendly software. What does everyone think? Good idea or bad.

[russellhltn]

Bad.

1) it's placing a copy of Windows that's registered to the Church on the hard drive.
2) It includes commercial, non-free software (Such as LANDesk and Symantec Antivirus)
3) Desktop 5.5 is locked down. The new user may find it difficult to work with.

Usually when I finally give a machine away, it's so old, the license sticker on the side is no longer a current OS. Nor do I have the OS disks. As a result, I just wipe the machine. The next couple of years might be a first.

[The_Earl]

I have used 5.5 to scrub the old computers without reinstalling MLS or Symantec. It leaves the comprter usable to give away with user frendly software. What does everyone think? Good idea or bad.

Bad Idea!

I would as a rule NEVER give a machine to someone else with a MS OS on it. Their licenses are a bit of a pain to work with, and are not friendly to that sort of sharing. Often, when donating a machine, you don't have the original install media, or OEM disk, so you can't install a version that matches the sticker on the side of the machine. If I have a machine w/o a sticker, often I don't have the license paperwork. So I would end up putting an improperly licensed OS on it. That makes ME liable, and can be confusing for the recipient when they can't get support, or their OS quits because MS finds out it isn't licensed properly.

Find a nice Ubuntu disk, and put it on the machine. At worst, the machine is usable.