My computer is an IBM 555X, which is at least 19 years old. The battery on the motherboard ran flat several years ago, so I am thinking of simply disposing of this computer. However, I would like to get some data off the hard drive and then destroy the drive before disposing of the computer. Is this possible and how should I go about doing this?

Assuming that the hard drive in the computer has not been corrupted or damaged then it should be possible to retrieve data off the drive. Usually to recover data from a defunct computer’s hard drive we connect the drive to another working computer, either by directly connecting the drive internally to the working computer or using a universal drive adapter (which allows us to connect an internal hard drive to an adapter which then connects into a computer via USB, allowing the connected hard drive to be accessed just like an external hard drive or USB drive). This is relatively easy for computer technicians who have the equipment readily available, but more difficult for end-users without access to this gear. Therefore, I would suggest that you take the computer (or hard drive) to a computer technician and ask them to extract the data and copy onto a CD or DVD. This would be the easiest and more cost effective method for retrieving that data.

Once the data has been recovered you could also ask the technician to wipe the drive. Generally when wiping a computer hard drive I recommend using Darik’s Boot and Nuke (www.dban.org) which will wipe the drive and write random data back onto the drive several times to minimise the chance of data recovery. However, I would only have this done once you have completely verified that the technician has recovered all the data which you need off the drive, as once the drive has been wiped all that data is gone for good. Additionally, once the drive has been wiped I would ask for the drive back and then physically dispose of the drive yourself (in an environmentally conscious manner) for your own peace of mind.