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From: merchant@dartvax.UUCP (Peter Merchant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Do You Protect Portables/Disks in Air Travel?
Message-ID: <6777@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jul-87 11:56:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.6777
Posted: Mon Jul 27 11:56:45 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Jul-87 06:12:46 EDT
References: <862@dasys1.UUCP> <695@uhccux.UUCP>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 24
Keywords: portables disks x-ray metal detector

In article <862@dasys1.UUCP> axelson@dasys1.UUCP (Kevin Axelson) writes:
>Can disk data be damaged by magnetic fields encountered during commercial air
>travel (e.g. from screening devices or elsewhere)?

I have a hard disk in my transportable (ie, Macintosh).  I always have the
people at the airlines hand-check it.  Usually, this requires me to plug it in
and turn it on, to prove that it is really a computer and not just a funky case
for a.357 magnum.

The weirdest case I know of was someone with an external hard disk who carried
that with him.  When they he got to the gate, he was asked to open the
hard disk.  Fortunately, he had a screwdriver so he did and they let him
through.  (Personally, I find this surprising, as if you ever look inside
those things, what you see is a metal box with lots of wires and cables coming
off of it.)

X-Rays do not harm magnetic disks, from what I understand.  However, the
magnetic fields created by the motors that run the conveyor belts can harm
disks.  Some people get away with it.  But then, some people are lucky.
While I might risk a 360K floppy, I'm certainly not risking a 20 megabyte
hard disk.
--
"Don't be fooled by the radio             Peter Merchant (merchant@dartvax.UUCP)
 the TV or the magazine."