I have an old (practically ancient, probably 2004) laptop that I use only for surfing the internet and Skype, predominantly while I am on vacation. I knew for about a year that the hard drive was going on it, so I cleared out all of the pertinent personal info. About a week ago the hard drive finally died. When it boots up, I get this:
Invalid configuration Information - please run SETUP program
Primary hard disk drive 0 not found
Time-of-day not set - please run SETUP program
Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility

So, here's my questions:
Will a current hard disk even work in this old computer?
Would it be worth it for an internet surfing and skype laptop to just replace the hard disk?
If the answers to those are no, can I just recycle this since the disk is no longer recognized or do I have to remove some hardware and destroy them to ensure that there is no recovery of my info?

Thanks in advance.

The truth is that data can still ne recovered by someone the the time and desire to do so. If you were looking to recover your own data it would cost you a fortune. An identity theft officer once told me its best to take the drive and smash it with a large hammer. Then recycle it. As for the laptop... You can pick up new hard drives relatively cheap. As long as you have a copy of windows it shouldn't be a problem to bring it back to life. You will need to redownload your drivers though. For the trouble its easier to pick up a cheap laptop at Best Buy. You can find basic models under $400.

Your hard drive has died (as you surmised). You can get a compatible one from a PC recycle place (like PCRecycle in Seattle). I did the same thing for my ~2007 laptop when the hard drive died. The newer drives are all high-speed serial, which won't work with your parallel bus.

Don't give up just yet.
Getting a hard drive not found error can also be a loose connection. You will need a jewlers phillips screwdriver but it's easy to take the drive out and reseat it. If that doesn't work, well it's probably dead. Though one thing nobody does is realize a LOT of dust collect inside the laptop over the years and can cause all sorts of problems (especially overheating).

You can put another drive in, there are places like PC recycle that will have older IDE based laptop drives you can slap in there.

Don't buy a new drive, as it will cost you a 100 dollars or so, and the truth is there may be other things wrong with the laptop. If you are just using it to surf and skype, you may just want to get a cheap *used iPad or Windows Surface tablet. The Windows surface hasn't been selling very well, and there are all sorts of really cheap deals on the Surface R/T's right now.

P.S. Anyone else worried about your files. Use Skydrive. It's free, you get 7 gigs of storage and it automatically moves your files up to the cloud. If you lose your hard drive, you just get a new one, reinstall Skydrive and all your files are back.

Google Drive's free access gives 15GB. Just sayin'.

RolandDeschain wrote:Google Drive's free access gives 15GB. Just sayin'.

True, but you have to give up all your privacy.

Shock2k wrote:

RolandDeschain wrote:Google Drive's free access gives 15GB. Just sayin'.

True, but you have to give up all your privacy.

I am so tired of this. People need to stop regurgitating stuff they've randomly seen somewhere, or heard from someone. Here, read the terms of service of both services, then get back to me:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... -agreement

http://www.google.com/policies/terms/

Also take notice of how significantly shorter Google's terms are compared to Microsoft's, and the fact that theirs covers ALL their services, (there's one that's a bit different from Google Apps accounts, but MS has a different one for corporate SkyDrive accounts, too) as well.

This whole "Google owns all your stuff" thing is ridiculous. They reserve the right to use stuff for evaluating, improving, and developing new products and the like. You want to see an actual draconian terms of service agreement, look at what the Apple iBooks one was until like a year ago, when they finally changed it due to all the backlash. They literally owned anything you wrote with it. As in, took it and sold it on their own in some cases, even. Show me Google doing that.

nerd fight

RolandDeschain wrote:

Shock2k wrote:

RolandDeschain wrote:Google Drive's free access gives 15GB. Just sayin'.

True, but you have to give up all your privacy.

I am so tired of this. People need to stop regurgitating stuff they've randomly seen somewhere, or heard from someone. Here, read the terms of service of both services, then get back to me:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... -agreement

http://www.google.com/policies/terms/

Also take notice of how significantly shorter Google's terms are compared to Microsoft's, and the fact that theirs covers ALL their services, (there's one that's a bit different from Google Apps accounts, but MS has a different one for corporate SkyDrive accounts, too) as well.

This whole "Google owns all your stuff" thing is ridiculous. They reserve the right to use stuff for evaluating, improving, and developing new products and the like. You want to see an actual draconian terms of service agreement, look at what the Apple iBooks one was until like a year ago, when they finally changed it due to all the backlash. They literally owned anything you wrote with it. As in, took it and sold it on their own in some cases, even. Show me Google doing that.

So what your saying is, don't hate the player, hate the Privacy Policy?

http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/fullnotice.mspx

By the way "my people" are Cloud Architects. We do this stuff for a living.

I'm sorry your tired, you should take a nap.

I love how you capitalize cloud architects like your title is the Pope, or something. In any case, why don't you list what Google "steals" that Microsoft doesn't, then? Also, it's "I'm sorry you're tired", not "your"; I hope you don't make code mistakes like that while doing all your awesome Cloud Architecting.

Please list exactly what Google shares that violates your privacy that Microsoft does NOT share, if you don't mind.

Shock2k wrote:

RolandDeschain wrote:Google Drive's free access gives 15GB. Just sayin'.

True, but you have to give up all your privacy.

Google already knows everything about you. What's the difference?

RolandDeschain wrote:

Shock2k wrote:

RolandDeschain wrote:Google Drive's free access gives 15GB. Just sayin'.

True, but you have to give up all your privacy.

I am so tired of this. People need to stop regurgitating stuff they've randomly seen somewhere, or heard from someone. Here, read the terms of service of both services, then get back to me:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... -agreement

http://www.google.com/policies/terms/

Also take notice of how significantly shorter Google's terms are compared to Microsoft's, and the fact that theirs covers ALL their services, (there's one that's a bit different from Google Apps accounts, but MS has a different one for corporate SkyDrive accounts, too) as well.

This whole "Google owns all your stuff" thing is ridiculous. They reserve the right to use stuff for evaluating, improving, and developing new products and the like. You want to see an actual draconian terms of service agreement, look at what the Apple iBooks one was until like a year ago, when they finally changed it due to all the backlash. They literally owned anything you wrote with it. As in, took it and sold it on their own in some cases, even. Show me Google doing that.

Google is selling information about you to foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Everything you put in their cloud, or anyone's cloud in general, is subject to that. Some people are ok with it, but most aren't aware it's even happening.

SmokinHawk wrote:Google is selling information about you to foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Everything you put in their cloud, or anyone's cloud in general, is subject to that. Some people are ok with it, but most aren't aware it's even happening.

Who isn't? That's my point. I want to know what he is referring to that supposedly makes Microsoft a better privacy choice than Google.