Dumpster Diving!

[Andrew_Carr]

I've never seriously considered dumpster diving, but there is an office depot right by my house(no car) and it seems people here have found some pretty interesting things.
But how legal is it, and will you get arrested?

I'm from Georgia, so the cops here are pretty anal, but I doubt they'll be camping out at an office depot at 10pm.

 

[omniviper]

me and a friend a forming a local socal dumpster diving group. im trying to look for people to join or people to join us. PM me if you're interested.

 

[vbrtrmn]

me and a friend a forming a local socal dumpster diving group. im trying to look for people to join or people to join us. PM me if you're interested.

The world is a big place, perhaps you could narrow it down

 

[DaCoOlNeSs]

That is a crazy story, I'm glad that that has never happened to me. I don't remember the last time that I was even in a dumpster that tall that it could close on me. Anyway, did you get the Dell?

oh of course I did, you dont scare yourself half to death and not get the loot


it was a P4 2.4 533 and 512GB RAM with a 40GB HDD and an MX440, crappy, but loot non-the-less

 

[Jon8RFC]

Linkage:
https://www4.maxtor.com/en/support/service/rma/create/01_serial_number.cfm?dt=

Great! I didn't notice that before. One drive is under warranty but the other expired a year ago Oh well, half a terabyte for free is pretty sweet. I did the advanced RMA option so my drive should be here by next Tuesday and I can use their packaging to return the bad drive...I told the guy how I packed it up and he said that's not how they ask that it be packaged, but he said if I do advance RMA I can use what they sent to send the bad one back

Now all I need to find is a case & psu, mobo w/ cpu and hsf and that's a whole extra machine I can have

 

[zoom314]

oh of course I did, you dont scare yourself half to death and not get the loot


it was a P4 2.4 533 and 512GB RAM with a 40GB HDD and an MX440, crappy, but loot non-the-less

Well at least You have that nearby, Me all I have nearby is an AM/PM Mini Market.

 

[twiggles]

I've only technically went dumpster diving once. When I was about 10 my dad noticed a box of candy beside a pharmacy dumpster, he looked inside and there were about ten boxes of good Russell Stovers chocolates and chocolate bars(all expired). We kept a couple boxes and gave the rest away.

Anyway, I score stuff all the time from my dad's rental properties. When people move out, they leave all kinds of stuff and my dad gets me to help him clean them out so it's there for the taking. It's not exactly "dumpster diving," but it's getting good stuff that's technically trash. I've gotten everything from computers/parts(he once rented a place to a PC repair firm, and they left an entire room full of good stuff - unfortunately they also left owing my dad $4,000), to TV's and electronics, to musical instruments, to pharmaceuticals, pipes, and all kinds of dope(including a QP of nasty weed and the remnants of a meth lab - my dad rents to some great folk).

 

[simpsond]

I found 3 250gig DiamondMax 16 5400rpm drives. One works just fine but the other two suffer from common Maxtor death problems...they're displayed as their model family in the bios and don't spin up at all. They're receiving power just fine because the little "Smooth" chips on the back get hot...TOO hot (as a result of the failure I guess).

They should be under warranty because these drives come with 3 years and are dated March & May of 2003. I thought it could be a simple firmware fix from what I read online, but after emailing Maxtor tech support, I was told this is not the case since they don't spin up at all and suggested sending them in for RMA if they're covered. I guess I'll just have to figure out what to do, because I don't want to waste money shipping the drives if they tell me they won't repair them since I don't have any proof of purchase or anything (which would be a good business move on their part).


Let's see...when I was 13 (20 now), I took a couple friends to a magazine dumpster at the elementary school by my house and we found a few pr0n magazines...man were we happy

I've found a bunch of wires, some of which have been used and some went back into the trash.

Buy the same drive from an online store, then RMA it and send back the old drive, when you get another new one, RMA it again with the other drive, some may not even check serial numbers. Or you could be ethical and throw them away

 

[TWiST2k]

I've been dumpster diving since 1996, and have never really taken extended time of off doing it, needless to say im very learned in this art. Everybody needs to get a bit more creative when there trying to RMA stuff. First most of the time there not going to even care if you have a proof of purchase, reciept, etc etc, I will admit in the last few years they ask more often then they don't but you still get alot of folks that just dont care, and its all about who answers the phone. Second, lets say they do ask you for a reciept or some kind of proof that you purchased this piece of hardware, this is where we get creative, "I got it as a birthday present" "I got it for christmas" etc etc etc....Third, let's say that for some reason you get Mr.Hardazz and he decides, he is going to do it by the book from now on, most of the time at this point I would just hang up, but otherwise I would still power thru with this approach, "Well my drive is dated as being manufactured as of lets say for example March of 2003, well no matter when this was purchased or where or why or for how much, it is physically younger then the warranty for that to even matter, alot of the time they will be like "Oh never thought of that" and then your off to the first step and pretty much last step to receive a brand new piece of hardware from something you found in a stink old, rusted, digsuting, stained, mutilated, good ol' trash can.

Now I will say that I did not read this entire thread, I read the first page and by the time I was done I skipped straight to 31, so I may have missed someone allready giving this sound advice. I would also like to say I have noticed a significant lower percentage of good stuff being thrown out then I did back when, and it seems like other then the occassional or random comeup, that I have been seeing the same era of hardware for quite some time. I am not 100% on all the implications of this phenomenon, alot of it has to do with the new computer recycling laws that are being passed, I mean we hafta pay extra in cali is we buy a lcd tv or monitor er whatever now, its like CRV for flat screens, so they can pay to recycle it... I think that is non-sence as usual. So really in my experience alot of places don't adhere to this rule but some have, making comeups more scare,

On another not quite identical note but similar context, I also have noticed that technology was flying for a couple few years not too long ago, and now seems to be chugging along as a slow but mostly steady pace, I think the reason for this is that when tech was seriously booming I mean going from 1Ghz to 3Ghz was like overnight compared to teh time it took to get to 1Ghz initially, these companies realized that they could milk the consumer for more money by slowing down the release cycle, and for the most part I think holding back tech they have to slowly satiate us into dishing out loads of cash for stuff thats allready outdated before it even finally hits market, I noticed this alot when I tried to order xn X800 when they were released like a year ago, I had it on backorder for like 10 months and finally gave up, these paper releases are just ridiculious, if there not ready to give us the hardware then certainly don't tell me its being released, cause its not. So in turn this whole situation has also slowed the computer upgrade path, and finally trickles down to teh trash digger, to inadvertainly ruin the comeup bottom line.

 

[zoom314]

Hopefully no drives from divin are OEMs, Maxtor won't fix them I was told, Which really and truly sucks!! And Yeah I read the serial number on them to Maxtorp.

 

[Devistater]

Hopefully no drives from divin are OEMs, Maxtor won't fix them I was told, Which really and truly sucks!! And Yeah I read the serial number on them to Maxtorp.

Depends if they are OEM OEM from like dell (who has a contract to do thier own support instead of maxtor), or sorta OEM just a bare bag hdd from newegg.
The easiest way to tell, goto that webpage I linked and type in the serial number to see warranty.

 

[zoom314]

Depends if they are OEM OEM from like dell (who has a contract to do their own support instead of maxtor), or sorta OEM just a bare bag hdd from newegg.
The easiest way to tell, goto that webpage I linked and type in the serial number to see warranty.

I did call the OEM(Compaq I think, It was more than 9 months ago) afterward and they said they only warrant the whole system, not the drive and that the OEM will not honor Maxtors warranty, Also Maxtor won't do any work on It even If I could pay for It, So I bought a working drive off of ebay instead, It's a moot point now as I threw the drive in the trash months ago.

 

[matt_c_j486]

Yeah so I went out on my virgin trip, took the van in case I found anything huge...I live in Calgary Alberta Canada. I checked out a Chapters, Compusmart, a strip mall, FutureShop, Home Outfitters, and another chapters/strip mall. I only found stuff at the chapters/strip mall, at chapters were 4-5 boxes of crappy books with their covers ripped off, and in the strip mall was a treadmill. The treadmill was missing those bars you hang onto when its going too fast, and one of the spindles (for lack of a better word, sorry I'm not up on treadmill tech) looked a bit off. So, not so bad I guess. I guess I could've taken it home and played with it, but my friend who came with me was too much of a sloth and we decided not to take it. Anyways, guy with the dell pc, I salute you. And keep on diving guys...

Matt.

 

[quasimodem]

Not sure if it counts as "diving" but as i was leaving work they (some other company in the building) was hauling a huge server case to the dumpster, and I naturally offered to take the case thinking "it could be modded" or something right?

So they agree to let me have it, help me load it into the car, and then tell me that 1 of the SCSI drives (all 9gb hotswap) died and only 5 of the six still work.

Looking at it, its an old Dell PowerEdge 4200. they think it was only a dual P2@300mhz with 512MB but hey. if nothing else the dual hot swap powersupplies and the scsi hot swap should be worth something.

QM

 

[Komataguri]

I'd be careful with RMAing harddrives you get from dumpster diving.


For all you know they could be loaded with child porn, and could load you in some serious shit if the manufacterer just happens to be able to boot them and get a glimpse at whats on it.

 

[nosoup4you718]

*sigh* after e-mailing my city...

Dear Steven

Section 86-14 titled Prohibited Collections of the Skokie Village Code
states;

"It shall be unlawful for any person or entity to collect, procure, or
obtain any waste materials from the parkways or alleys unless the person
or entity is the Village or its contractors"

maaaaaaaaaan.... imma do it anyways

 

[PersonMan]

*sigh* after e-mailing my city...

Dear Steven

Section 86-14 titled Prohibited Collections of the Skokie Village Code
states;

"It shall be unlawful for any person or entity to collect, procure, or
obtain any waste materials from the parkways or alleys unless the person
or entity is the Village or its contractors"

maaaaaaaaaan.... imma do it anyways

That just makes it more exciting

 

[Kaiga]

here is the swag from my recent dumpster dive: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027366848&postcount=97

 

[G'ßöö]

best thread I've read in a long time and not too full of off topic crap. hilarious stuff!!


\__/

cheers to all the hard werkin DD'ers !

 

[n64man120]

Hey, I tried to go DD with my buddies today for the first time. It was about 5 in the afternoon and we went to bestbuy, circuit city, blockbuster, and several other places. Most of them had dumpsters and not compactors... but they were all pretty much empty and stuff. What is the best time of day, and time of week to go. And how much success should we expect?

 

[jpmkm]

Hey, I tried to go DD with my buddies today for the first time. It was about 5 in the afternoon and we went to bestbuy, circuit city, blockbuster, and several other places. Most of them had dumpsters and not compactors... but they were all pretty much empty and stuff. What is the best time of day, and time of week to go. And how much success should we expect?

Best time of the week depends on the pickup schedule. You'll just have to go around every couple days for a couple weeks to see when the dumpsters are fullest. I wouldn't count on too much success from the larger chain stores, though some people find some good things. Some of the best places are small computer repair shops.

 

[Komataguri]

Hey, I tried to go DD with my buddies today for the first time. It was about 5 in the afternoon and we went to bestbuy, circuit city, blockbuster, and several other places. Most of them had dumpsters and not compactors... but they were all pretty much empty and stuff. What is the best time of day, and time of week to go. And how much success should we expect?

if they were empty, probably means garbage was recently collected.


Want to find out the day they collect garbage, then come the night before for maximum haul.

 

[humvee13]

dont expect anything from best buy other than garbage.. Most of the product thats junk or broken goes back to a main warehouse where its sold off. There isnt much destroy in field type of stuff.

 

[Kaiga]

I just found a copy of Windows XP home, and a copy of Half Life 2 in the Best Buy Dumpster on saturday.

 

[Thermite Paste]

i just found a 128 mb usb drive on my sidewalk... and it works, lol

 

[quasimodem]

Over the weekend at my apartment complex I picked up a pII-400 gateway, missing a hard drive but had memory. works too, booted to a floppy disk and everything came up.

and another machine, no power supply, celeron of some sort on a slotkey. haven't looked at it yet.

and again at the office another machine from the office next door, this time they didn't even pretend to want to carry it out, they came to me first.... it's a p2-400 gateway as well, but hey, it's free.

rumor has it they puked an array upstairs, so i might be able to get their server in a week, they were all talking about getting new ones in.

QM

 

[tim_m]

my college's office of information technology is always throwing old hardware out and they just leave it in the hallway where i work so it's up for grabs. today i got 2 working 19" monitors (well i've only tested the one but the other was in the same pile). there were actually 4 total but i can't use them all. i'm actually only using the one at my work computer. previously i've gotten a 12 port 10 mbit hub and 2 24 port 10 mbit hubs, lots of network and power cables, keyboards, mice, and an 8 port kvm switch, but it doesn't work

 

[Kaiga]

yesterday I scored 15 working USB cables, 2 creative 256 MB Mp3 players, (yes they work except the screen covers slide around a bit) a Gateway Essential P4 (2.0GHz 512MB RAM, a DVD-R/CDRW combo, 80GBHDD, mobo has onboard video, sound, but the problem is that is has no cables for anything, just the PSU has its cable, but IDE cables is what i havbe alot of.) a 15" LCD falt panel, and a huge wreath of network cables.
all found at my local mall's dumpster. but tonight, is the big night, (well, actually early tommorow morning @ 2:00 am, I will go DD at a closing LAN/PC/Gaming center. oh yeah.

 

[Thermite Paste]

yesterday I scored 15 working USB cables, 2 creative 256 MB Mp3 players, (yes they work except the screen covers slide around a bit) a Gateway Essential P4 (2.0GHz 512MB RAM, a DVD-R/CDRW combo, 80GBHDD, mobo has onboard video, sound, but the problem is that is has no cables for anything, just the PSU has its cable, but IDE cables is what i havbe alot of.) a 15" LCD falt panel, and a huge wreath of network cables.
all found at my local mall's dumpster. but tonight, is the big night, (well, actually early tommorow morning @ 2:00 am, I will go DD at a closing LAN/PC/Gaming center. oh yeah.

damn, that is a nice haul.

 

[Komataguri]

I'm hoping to make my first serious dumpster dive session this evening just around dusk [ 6pm or so ]


Scouted the places out last tuesday, local Office Max and several comp stores have wide open dumpsters.



I was kind of put off by the office max when I scoped it, Cause there was nothing dry shit in there [ You know, office papers and the like ] but had a stank to it.

 

[Kaiga]

damn, that is a nice haul.

thanks.
the funny part was when I was climbing out of Comp USA's dumpster some lady walked by and gave me such a strange look. lol.

 

[aldy402]

anybody ever go DDing in the NYC area?

 

[dragon]

Willing to go DD, in and around Denver, CO area. PM me.

 

[jeffmoss26]

yesterday i was given two computers from my school.
1 worked fine, and 1 needs a hard drive. Both are Dell Optiplex's.
the one that works is a P3 500, 128MB ram, 8GB hard drive, ATI 3D AGP Video.

 

[Garzilla05]

Well, I went dumpster diving on Saturday with two buddies and we came in with a pretty good haul. As follows:

-One Lock box with key
-One Infrared foldable pocket pda keyboard
-30 CD-R's
-20 DVD-Rs
-One leather computer chair (small slash on back)
-And of course, the weekly raid 50 bags of chips (Frito Lay tosses out any expired bags, so you raid them weekly and there's a dumpster full of closed bags of chips : ), good deal)

Keep this thread going!

 

[Kaiga]

yesterday I scored 15 working USB cables, 2 creative 256 MB Mp3 players, (yes they work except the screen covers slide around a bit) a Gateway Essential P4 (2.0GHz 512MB RAM, a DVD-R/CDRW combo, 80GBHDD, mobo has onboard video, sound, but the problem is that is has no cables for anything, just the PSU has its cable, but IDE cables is what i havbe alot of.) a 15" LCD falt panel, and a huge wreath of network cables.
all found at my local mall's dumpster. but tonight, is the big night, (well, actually early tommorow morning @ 2:00 am, I will go DD at a closing LAN/PC/Gaming center. oh yeah.

I forgot to reply abouit this post.
ok, at the LAN center scored a nice one:
2 DDR pads
A set of 200W speakers
A used Xblade PC case, but the top has a big long scratch on it
some MORE networking cable
an office chair
2 working 19" CRTs
7 Keyboards (all the same, just a bunch of regular Medion Keyboards)
6 Mice (all laser too!)
some empty files, a filing cabinet
a Playstation 2 Light up sign
3 unused cans of air
and a 16 port network switch.

 

[Garzilla04]

Me and a few buddies went dumpster diving over the weekend. I dive whenever I can, and almost always come back with some good stuff. This past weekend was especially cool...

We started off by hitting up the 2 local staples near my house. We found a leather office chair, which had been slightly slashed, works like a charm. Along with 2 Panasonic digital voice recorders, a spindle of DVD-Rs, and a spindle of CD-Rs.

We had this idea to check out the local Frito Lay distributor. I knew of a distribution center about 20 min away from my house. So we drive there and check it out, the main gate happens to be open and I see no "no tresspassing" signs anywhere in sight. Rather than driving my car into the center itself, and risk getting trapped (whole place was gated w/ barbed wire). Me and my buddies parked my car in a pipe-fitting place right next door, and ran through the woods to the back of the building.

We decided it would be safer for me to scale the barbed wire fence rather than having the three of us run into the gate, which was on a main street. So my buddies boosted me up, and a I carefully scaled the barbed wire with no scratches. Behind the building I followed this pitch black alley with my friends on the other side of the fence. Finally reached the dumpster, and took a peek inside... .

The dumpster was literally half way filled with every kind of Frito Lay product you could think of. Doritos, Grandma's Cookies, Lays Classic, Pepperoni Bites, plus a ton more. I hopped right in, and began clearing the dumpster of all the goodies, and tossing them to my friends on the other side of the fence, who then made quite a few runs to my car. We ended up filling his trunk with this stuff. All of which is only 3-7 days over the Exp date. I was never the kind of person to eat food out of a dumpster, but if its a sealed package with an enclosed dumpster...im down.

Im set with dorm food for awhile

 

[Destonomos]

anyone want to go DD around the lower kentucky area? Right now i'm in Murray at college, its about 10 mins from the tennesse boarder.

 

[|distortion|]

Anyone here in Melbourne Florida wanna go dd'ing?? Email me...

 

[PoisonedPawn45]

Me and a few buddies went dumpster diving over the weekend. I dive whenever I can, and almost always come back with some good stuff. This past weekend was especially cool...

We started off by hitting up the 2 local staples near my house. We found a leather office chair, which had been slightly slashed, works like a charm. Along with 2 Panasonic digital voice recorders, a spindle of DVD-Rs, and a spindle of CD-Rs.

We had this idea to check out the local Frito Lay distributor. I knew of a distribution center about 20 min away from my house. So we drive there and check it out, the main gate happens to be open and I see no "no tresspassing" signs anywhere in sight. Rather than driving my car into the center itself, and risk getting trapped (whole place was gated w/ barbed wire). Me and my buddies parked my car in a pipe-fitting place right next door, and ran through the woods to the back of the building.

We decided it would be safer for me to scale the barbed wire fence rather than having the three of us run into the gate, which was on a main street. So my buddies boosted me up, and a I carefully scaled the barbed wire with no scratches. Behind the building I followed this pitch black alley with my friends on the other side of the fence. Finally reached the dumpster, and took a peek inside... .

The dumpster was literally half way filled with every kind of Frito Lay product you could think of. Doritos, Grandma's Cookies, Lays Classic, Pepperoni Bites, plus a ton more. I hopped right in, and began clearing the dumpster of all the goodies, and tossing them to my friends on the other side of the fence, who then made quite a few runs to my car. We ended up filling his trunk with this stuff. All of which is only 3-7 days over the Exp date. I was never the kind of person to eat food out of a dumpster, but if its a sealed package with an enclosed dumpster...im down.

Im set with dorm food for awhile

nice