2006 core duo - battery dead - how to wipe?

[sionell]

I’m digging out all the old laptops to clean off the shelf and trade them in or get rid of them and my oldest laptop - a 2006 intel core duo has a battery that seems like it’s coming apart. It hasn’t been powered up for many many years at this point. What’s the best way to deal with this ancient beast? Thanks!

 

[DeltaMac]

Your title is asking how to wipe?
Your battery is swelling - don't try to install or use it, it can be unsafe to do that...
Dispose of the battery in an environmentally-friendly way - depending on your local laws.
You can boot it up from your power adapter without the battery installed.
Or, take it apart, remove the hard drive, and connect to another Mac through a SATA adapter/USB enclosure to wipe the drive, if you still want to do that.
Maybe you could offer it for sale on eBay... particularly if you think it should work with the exception of the failed battery.

 

[sionell]

Your title is asking how to wipe?
Your battery is swelling - don't try to install or use it, it can be unsafe to do that...
Dispose of the battery in an environmentally-friendly way - depending on your local laws.
You can boot it up from your power adapter without the battery installed.
Or, take it apart, remove the hard drive, and connect to another Mac through a SATA adapter/USB enclosure to wipe the drive, if you still want to do that.
Maybe you could offer it for sale on eBay... particularly if you think it should work with the exception of the failed battery.

Yeah - my main concern was how to wipe the data off of it given that the battery doesn't seem safe to use.

I'll try and plug it in with the power cord (which is currently charging a slightly newer 2009 laptop to let me validate the data is all pulled off that) and no battery and see if it still boots up. When I put it away on the shelf, it was working fine. My plan is to take it to Apple and they can dispose of everything even if they won't give me any money for it. I have at least one newer laptop that I think will be worth a bit in gift cards; so I can do it all in one trip. I can't imagine this one would be worth much even on ebay?

 

[Fishrrman]

Can the back be removed, and the battery and drive accessed that way?
If you're not sure, see if ifixit.com has an illustrated guide.

Take the back off and REMOVE the battery.
BE CAREFUL. You DO NOT want to puncture it, it could explode!

Handle the battery carefully and dispose of it safely.

As for the internal drive...
Take it out.
Is it a 2.5" SATA drive?
If so, just get an EXTERNAL USB3 enclosure for it.
Put it into the enclosure.
Use disk utility to erase it.
Then... use it for other purposes... scratch storage... whatever.
If it works, why throw out a good drive?

 

[sionell]

Can the back be removed, and the battery and drive accessed that way?
If you're not sure, see if ifixit.com has an illustrated guide.

Take the back off and REMOVE the battery.
BE CAREFUL. You DO NOT want to puncture it, it could explode!

Handle the battery carefully and dispose of it safely.

As for the internal drive...
Take it out.
Is it a 2.5" SATA drive?
If so, just get an EXTERNAL USB3 enclosure for it.
Put it into the enclosure.
Use disk utility to erase it.
Then... use it for other purposes... scratch storage... whatever.
If it works, why throw out a good drive?

Thanks for the reply. The swollen battery went to the hazardous waste site this morning.

The computer was able to boot up just fine on wired power - and I've been able to copy the files I might need off of it. I'm currently debating between trying to pull the HD out, and having to get a HD enclosure for it or putting a bootable image of OSX Tiger on a USB drive (which I do have) to boot it so I can wipe the drive.

I'm not really interested in keeping the drive around for backup purposes - it'd be large and bulky compared to the Samsung SSDs I have that are compact and super fast to read/write from.