Morning: The Van Arrives
A day starts with whatever has arrived — courier deliveries and posted parcels, laptops, PCs, tablets and monitors, all shapes and all states of disrepair. Everything is unloaded, labelled and logged by make, model and serial number before anything else happens to it.
First Stop: The Wipe Station
Before anyone opens a device, the storage is dealt with. Sanitisation follows NIST SP 800-88, with the method chosen by media type rather than one technique applied to everything, and every drive is verified afterwards. Any drive that fails verification is pulled and physically destroyed.
The Workbench
This is the slow part. Each device gets opened up, run through diagnostics, and assessed for what it actually needs. Common fixes include:
- Swapping a dead battery for a harvested one from another donated device
- Cleaning out years of dust (you'd be amazed)
- Upgrading RAM from parts harvested from beyond-repair machines
- Installing a fresh, clean operating system
Afternoon: Ready to Ship
By the end of the day, a laptop that arrived looking like it belonged in a skip is now running smoothly, boxed up, and heading to a school or family who needs it. That's a good day.