[K12OSN] OT: hard drives and magnets

Roger roger.in.eugene at gmail.com
Fri Mar 16 17:29:04 UTC 2007


On 3/16/07, Steven Santos <steven at simplycircus.com> wrote:

> Now, again, while its possible to do, its really hard.  Even if you open a
> HD case itself and get the magnet spinning and very close to the platters,
> your still going to need and industrial power electromagnet to do it.
After you open the HD case (not on a drive you're concerned about),
check out the arm, there's a very powerful set of magnets *in* the
case.  I don't see how a set of magnets that close to a hard drive
would do no damage, but a student using a magnet *could* damage it.

>...
> As to leaving the drive formatted, no way.  A magnet would wipe those bits
> just as quickly as it would wipe data bits.  A magnet does not have the kind
> of control over what it wipes to do this (at least not without all of those
> control circuits).

I agree.  I would think the magnet would just randomize the bits and
make it totally unusable until you did a format.




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