DescentBB

I recently shipped a computer with UPS, and when the computer got to my friend across the US, he said XP wouldn't come up. I've heard that magnetic scanners and whatfor can erase HDs, what's your experience in shipping comps and this happening?

Magnets cant erase hard drives.

Hard drives are pretty sensitive to any kind of impact, so if they threw it around, it might have destroyed the hard drive with no visual indication on the disk's surface. I'm sure you know that, but that's my input.

Vindicator wrote:Magnets cant erase hard drives.

That is the dumbest statement I've EVER seen. I hope that was sarcasm.


On topic - You should have marked the box "fragile" and "magnetic media enclosed", and "do not xray"

Capm wrote:

Vindicator wrote:Magnets cant erase hard drives.

That is the dumbest statement I've EVER seen. I hope that was sarcasm.

Really? How do you figure? You do know that theres a couple of bigass magnets already inside, right?

Unless we're talking about, say, degaussing it, but I dont think UPS's scanners are that powerful.

Did he check that nothing came unseated?
Make sure nothing got knocked lose during shipping. like cards, cables, CPU Fan ect.
I think that is the most likely answer

KompresZor wrote:Did he check that nothing came unseated?
Make sure nothing got knocked lose during shipping. like cards, cables, CPU Fan ect.
I think that is the most likely answer

x2

Vindicator wrote:

Capm wrote:

Vindicator wrote:Magnets cant erase hard drives.

That is the dumbest statement I've EVER seen. I hope that was sarcasm.

Really? How do you figure? You do know that theres a couple of bigass magnets already inside, right?

Unless we're talking about, say, degaussing it, but I dont think UPS's scanners are that powerful.

Bulk Tape Erasers. The ones you have to plug in to the wall. Nothing else I've found works, including subwoofer magnets.

Hard drives do have a level of shielding on them. If the HDD was erased by a magnet you wouldnt be getting this kind of problem, and x-rays wont bother them, for one, you can put a running laptop through the x-ray scanners in an airport and you wont have any problems. Something probably came lose in shipping, believe me UPS seems to go out of their way to beat the tar out of everything they ship.

Vindicator wrote:

Capm wrote:

Vindicator wrote:Magnets cant erase hard drives.

That is the dumbest statement I've EVER seen. I hope that was sarcasm.

Really? How do you figure? You do know that theres a couple of bigass magnets already inside, right?

Unless we're talking about, say, degaussing it, but I dont think UPS's scanners are that powerful.

Hmm if youre so sure, get a big magnet, put it up to your hard drive, and then tell us its ok. Go ahead! After all, it wont damage it right?

Vindicator wrote:Magnets cant erase hard drives.

Uh...

Fair enough.



I chose the magnets out of an old hard drive, since they are super strong and would leave no doubt as to whether or not they were strong enough.



The victim was a WD 30gb drive out of a Folding box here. I connect to it via Remote Desktop, so if anything were to happen to the drive then I wouldnt be able to connect to it.

Lo and behold...

Hmm... after doing a bit of Googling, apprently scientifically speaking you'd need a pretty strong magnetic field (on the order of 1 Tesla) to wipe out a hard drive. Floppy disks are easier to ruin because they're just surrounded by plastic.

However, if you screw up even a few bits (say, in the MFT or the MBR) you basically ruin the data.

L M F A O ! !

Hoo boy, the things someone would do to prove a point

I'd call it
PWNAGE

Nice work Vindi. My ballcap is off to you sir

Dude, You've got ballz.

I know when I've been own3d. But I wouldn't make a habit out of placing magnets near my hard drive anyway.

LOL! Good one Vin.

LOL.. Dcrazy just got served.

Just out of curiousity, what happens if you leave the magnets on when the drive is being used?

UPS delivered my PC's with 2 broken graphics cards and a bent case... the heatsink had actually come straight off one of those cards.

would this be enough to destroy an HDD?
http://www.gaussboys.com/product_info.p ... ucts_id=71
Just some morbid curiosity

Ferno wrote:LOL.. Dcrazy just got served.

Hey, I admit it, but I must share the owned-nage with "That is the dumbest statement I've EVER seen" Capm.

Darkside Heartless wrote:would this be enough to destroy an HDD?
http://www.gaussboys.com/product_info.p ... ucts_id=71
Just some morbid curiosity

ROFL,, even if the data was ok, u'd never get it back off of the HDD

That magnet is about one third of a Tesla. By contrast, a typical MRI machine is 1 to 1.5 Tesla.

But yeah, you'll never get it off. You can't exactly use a metal crowbar to help.

I forgot to remove my wallet when I got an MRI recently...destroyed my student ID, Drivers License, and ATM card

That's strange, because about a month ago I got board, took the magnets out of an old hard drive, booted a pentium 200 up with another old hard drive (we are talking 200MB here), and slapped the magnets onto it! The heads started thrashing like crazy for a couple minutes. I turned off the computer, then tuned it back on to find that the bios couldn't even pick it up any more. I was pretty amused. Maybe they have improved the shealding on hard drives a bit sence then.

Anyway, magnets wouldn't have caused the problems that your friend had.

I did ask what would happen if he actually turned the drive on, but would he try it? Nooo.

Krom shipped me a PC though UPS once,, the side of the case was dented in, CPU HS popped off (P2 slot), and the CD bay covers were knocked out, 1 cracked

And it was packaged pretty good, the box was just beat to ★■◆●
The machine works fine though, and has been running 24/7 as my server for about a year now =)

Mr. Perfect wrote:I did ask what would happen if he actually turned the drive on, but would he try it? Nooo.

I may be crazy but I'm not stupid. Theres a chance the heads might be affected by the magnets and crash into the platters.

...actually, I do have a couple old-ass hard drives around that are more or less expendable...

if it got air freighted it probably picked up a charge, a few thousand volts will quite a bit of damage to bios/control chips.