Question Regarding HDD and Magnets

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
T

ThomasMagnus

Honorable
Feb 25, 2012
109
0
10,680
Hello,

Today I was installing a new WD Blue 1TB Hard drive in my computer. I was trying to locate the serial number on the hdd, and stupidly I was using one of those shake flashlights which has a magnet inside. The magnet came within 15cm of the drive. The magnet doesn't seem to be weak, as my small screw driver gets stuck to it. When I noticed that I was using that kind of flashlight I started to get very worried if I damaged the drive. I ran the chkdsk thing and the error checking thing in windows, and it looks fine. Crystal Disk info says it is "Good", and I can move and open files on it. If it is working now, is there any reason to worry about it not working in the future? I store a lot of important school documents on it so I want to make sure they are not going to get corrupted a month from now!

I attached a picture of some of the diagnostic tests run. Does everything look OK?

Thank you very much :oops:

Untitled.png


Capture.jpg
 
Solution
A
Unless it was a really, really, really strong magnet, it would not damage the inside workings of the drive. However, its magnetic field could corrupt any data that was present on the drive, but since there wasn't anything on the drive you should be good to go.
Sort by date Sort by votes
A

animal

Distinguished
Jan 23, 2010
2,060
0
20,460
Magnets (or magnetic fields) don't physically damage the drive, they corrupt the data being stored on the drive (since the data is magnetically stored)

If you can still run programs and access your data, the magnet may not have been strong enough or close enough do any harm.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
T

ThomasMagnus

Honorable
Feb 25, 2012
109
0
10,680
Wait a second, so magnets don't cause physical damage to the drive? I always thought that they did lol. So, I shouldn't have any problems in the future with this drive? (Sorry to ask a million times, I was just really freaked out lol)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A

animal

Distinguished
Jan 23, 2010
2,060
0
20,460
Unless it was a really, really, really strong magnet, it would not damage the inside workings of the drive. However, its magnetic field could corrupt any data that was present on the drive, but since there wasn't anything on the drive you should be good to go.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
T

ThomasMagnus

Honorable
Feb 25, 2012
109
0
10,680


And there are no errors showing above? Sorry I'm very new at this stuff. BTW I also just checked out the magnet, and it can't even come close to holding a fork.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
popatim

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Dec 2, 2009
38,904
980
135,890
Harddrives are magnetically shielded anyways otherwise we wouldn't need screws to hold them in place. LoL - They have some pretty strong magnets inside them already.

SSD's on the otherhand, are not shielded but do not store data magnetically either...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,445
17,910
184,590
15cm. Almost 6". Not even a little bit of worry.

Next time you come across a dead hard drive, take it apart. Find the magnet inside, and remove it.
See how insanely strong it is. Stick it to the fridge in the kitchen.
That magnet is inside the drive case, a mere 1cm from the platters.


Don't make a practice of sticking magnets on the outside of hard drives, but you're fine.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom