this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
26 points (93.3% liked)

PC Gaming

13785 readers
314 users here now

For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki

Rules:

  1. Be Respectful.
  2. No Spam or Porn.
  3. No Advertising.
  4. No Memes.
  5. No Tech Support.
  6. No questions about buying/building computers.
  7. No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
  8. No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
  9. No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
  10. Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
EXiLExJD@lemmy.ca
UncleBadTouch@lemmy.ca
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
26
What’s the deal with the abundance of eBay listed laptops lacking drives? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 6 months ago by Gullible@sh.itjust.works to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I’m starting to get back into the swing of tech at large, and found a business laptop that fits my needs for a portable low power emulation device. When I look to buy it secondhand, because I don’t intend to burn money or the environment unnecessarily, I find dozens of extremely cheap listings without drives. Are these secondhand from businesses removing and drilling the drives or is there something else going on?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 months ago

I'm assuming you're in the US and looking at Dell Latitude, HP EliteBook, or Lenovo Thinkpad, possibly on eBay from a recycling company.

Many large corporations buy these with a 3 year warranty, and stretch those to 4 or 5 years unless they break. Once the devices are too old, they go through a decom process. This usually includes sanitizing the data. Depending on the corporation, this could mean a secure erase, or it could mean physical destruction with a grinder. Then they send it to a recycler or refurbisher, who pays them a pittance for the remaining value. It's also why they are frequently missing the hard drive caddy - the difference in value is minimal, so they remove it the fastest way possible.

Power bricks and docks are usually usable on other models/generations, so those aren't sent to recycling until they are useless. That's why you often see laptops listed without bricks.