Chosen Solution
I have an 840 G5 with a cracked 4K LCD (not cheap to fix!) which will need to sit on the backlog for a bit until I can get a raw 4K screen, used assembly or a locked donor. However, I was able to get it with the SSD (in this market, YAY!) … But I also got their user data since it was very obvious it booted into Windows :-(. Since the LCD is cracked, I cannot see the BIOS to erase, or check the laptop for evidence of an old OS. Since I’m not 100% sure, I have to worry about “cold storing” someone’s data unwittingly. Not exactly fun, but also not the first time. Is it possible to bypass the internal LCD so I can go into Windows to make sure, and into the BIOS so I can erase the laptop? If not, I will need to remove the SSD, use my fixit contest laptop (this G5 has a SanDisk drive, and I installed a TEAMGROUP SSD in the fixit challenge laptop), boot parted magic and erase it in a NVMe enclosure, and move it back to the laptop.
You could mount the SSD to an external enclosure, and connect that to a computer. This way you can wipe any data that might be on that drive using a separate computer. Otherwise you could try installing the SSD into a spare laptop and wipe it from there.
Try to use a VGA cable directly to a monitor or connect a HDMI to a TV either ways should work there is also SSD removal option which is easier.
