So I spilled water on my laptop and it died

[Bernadette]

I'm in the market for a new one. I use it for watching DVDs, storing my Itunes and Calibre libraries (which I thankfully just backed up on my devices), and web browsing. I  have no idea what to look for, please advise.

[andy]

I switched recently from laptop to a desktop and run $699 MiniMac M1, $3 Good Will professional keyboard and 27" screen which does not have to be expensive. I do have old laptop as well which I use occasionally.

If money is not an object, I would go with Mac Book Air. Phenomenal machine.

I recently needed a Windows machine to run certain software and occasional and went with refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T470s. $200-250 with really really good build quality.

I do not think you will find a new/newer laptop with DVD these days. I am super happy with a external device, a $5 garage sale find.

[Bernadette]

Money is definitely an object. I'd like to stay under $500.

[AlNg]

Money is definitely an object.

Costco sometimes has sales.

[Heinrich]

I will send you mine: 2017 MacBook Air. Cracked screen, cratered battery. What's best way to wipe purchase and personal history from HD? Or is that not truly possible?

[Bernadette]

I will send you mine: 2017 MacBook Air. Cracked screen, cratered battery. What's best way to wipe purchase and personal history from HD? Or is that not truly possible?

I'm looking at a factory refurbished HP on Ebay. Looks like my best bet.

[andy]

If going with refurbished, it is good to ask up front if they put stickers around to make it look good as well as sellers with 100% feedback

This looks good https://www.ebay.com/itm/304573951651?hash=item46ea05aea3%3Ag%3Aa6QAAOSw31RgUkw3&LH_ItemCondition=2010

[TerrorDæmonum]

I will send you mine: 2017 MacBook Air. Cracked screen, cratered battery. What's best way to wipe purchase and personal history from HD? Or is that not truly possible?

It is possible. That computer uses a non-standard solid state drive that a user could remove and replace. The particular best practices beyond removing the drive and physically destroying it (which always works) depend on the user's ability to reinstall the operating system and understand the current configuration.

If the drive is encrypted or if the user directory is encrypted, wiping it is so much easier as the data is already scrambled. Creating a new user and removing your old account would effectively deal with any privacy concerns without doing anything else.

If the drive or directory is not encrypted, then you still have an advantage as solid state drives are quite different from hard drivers. Data deleted and TRIMed is pretty well gone as a side effect of how the drive works. This can usually be done within the operating system...as far as I know.

Even without these things, in general, deleting your personal files and then doing a complete reformat and reinstall of the operating system tends to effectively wipe a drive for most user needs and this is something that should be done anyway when a computer changes hands. One would need to have installation media to do this and the computer manufacturer in this case is the source for how to do this if you don't already know.

For wiping storage in general, use DBAN. This can effectively wipe computer storage to an extremely high level with minimal effort. This is run from a bootable drive and it will completely wipe and overwrite storage completely. After this is done on a boot drive, the operating system would need to be reinstalled.

Note: all advice here is for regular users with regular security and privacy needs, so people who know the technical limitations at the highest level of relying on encryption, reformatting and reinstalling, and SSD data recovery on a theoretical level need not reply to this with out of context concerns.