And first of all, we should encourage you not to throw a laptop as it is trash, especially the battery; you should go to a "clean" place from your place to dump it there to dispose of it properly, because some of the stuff the laptop does is dangerous – and, especially the battery – and it needs to process it in some way.
The hard drive, the most important component
Among the parts of the laptop that you have to separate before disposing of it, without a doubt the most important is the hard disk. And not because you can also use it for other purposes, such as adding capacity to another laptop or PC or using it on an external device such as USB storage, but because all the information is contained on the laptop.
Even though you can't save the hard drive (maybe it's old, slow and cheap and you have no desire to keep it), you have to separate it to destroy it and make it impossible for anyone to access that information (at least not without going to a special company that costs you a face and even then it doesn't have everything to do with it for any information). With great care and wearing protective glasses, you can destroy the hard drive with a hammer or scarf, though the key is to open it and completely wipe its plates.
RAM for a laptop, because you don't know
Another thing you can save for later use is RAM, because even if they're old you don't know when you might need them. Whether you are upgrading an old laptop, a friend or installing a small PC, it doesn't help to have RAM modules pulled out of the cupboard, and you also get no space.
WiFi / Bluetooth card
The third best thing to save before throwing a laptop is a wireless card. Like RAM, it takes up very little space and you never know when it might come in … imagine you bought a new laptop and your WiFi card was broken, because you would have an old one to use. Remember to remove, in addition to the card itself, the antennas that act as an antenna.
It may also help if you buy a PC mini-Nuc-PC PC compatible with these expansion cards, but they do not remove it from the factory.
As we mentioned before, you never know, and since they take up almost no space, it costs nothing to store these laptop parts in a cupboard.
Other "accessible" items
As for all the parts of the computer you can keep, are they not that important. However, if you decide to "spit" a laptop to keep some of its features, these are the things to keep in mind:
- Keyboard keys. You never know, they may be accompanied by newcomers and will work for you after a break.
- CD / DVD drive. Although almost no new laptops already have these units, you never know.
- Screen. It would be a little cheaper if the screen were to work for you, but you could probably sell it in the secondary market as a spare, or we could use it when doing a DIY project with a Raspberry Pi, for example.
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