From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 20 20:30:04 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3C34316A4CE for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:30:04 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp1.wanadoo.fr (smtp1.wanadoo.fr [193.252.22.30]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DAC1143D48 for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:30:03 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr) Received: from me-wanadoo.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mwinf0112.wanadoo.fr (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id 1F8DA1C00624 for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 21:30:03 +0100 (CET) Received: from pix.atkielski.com (ASt-Lambert-111-2-1-3.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr [81.50.80.3]) by mwinf0112.wanadoo.fr (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id F3F861C0060D for ; Thu, 20 Jan 2005 21:30:02 +0100 (CET) X-ME-UUID: 20050120203002999.F3F861C0060D@mwinf0112.wanadoo.fr Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 21:30:02 +0100 From: Anthony Atkielski X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Message-ID: <10710335547.20050120213002@wanadoo.fr> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <41F0130C.1030900@locolomo.org> References: <200501200929.j0K9TXbl022106@mp.cs.niu.edu> <41EF92A2.30506@incubus.de> <20050120130838.K768@kenmore.kozy-kabin.nl> <41EFB860.1030606@locolomo.org> <20050120145658.E2927@kenmore.kozy-kabin.nl> <503540176.20050120155229@wanadoo.fr> <20050120101203.B45394@starfire.mn.org> <41F0130C.1030900@locolomo.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: FreeBSD I LOVE YOU X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:30:04 -0000 Erik Norgaard writes: EN> Many larger companies have a fixed upgrading schedule, a pc lives 3 EN> years. One must wonder why. After all, they don't rebuild their offices every three years (although some seem to replace company cars fairly quickly--but mostly due to wear and tear, I presume, which is not much of a factor with PCs). EN> My consideration was that it might be cheaper to donate such pc's with EN> new harddrives rather than go through the trouble to overwrite the disk EN> to destroy data properly. If one can be confident that the drive will not be opened, it's probably safe to just wipe the drive with overwrites. Getting any but the most recent information off the drive usually requires opening it (although some drives allow calibration that might get around this). Unfortunately, most people will probably need Windows on the machine, and unless they happen to have an old copy of Windows around to install, an older PC may not be fast enough to suit them. Of course, if they want FreeBSD, no problem. -- Anthony