Hard drive and airport Scanner

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wreck90

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Topic # 66276 16-Aug-2010 16:26

I recently travelled to north america with my laptop (brand new internal 2.5" drive) and a brand new external 2.5" drive.

I went through airport scanners a number of times, and both hard drives have failed.

PB Tech have replaced the internal drive (after much 'debate'), after which I discovered the external drive has also failed. At least I won't have to fight PB tech over that one , it is quite obvious, I cannot even format this drive.

This really annoys me, as I was backing up data (Pics and video) from the internal to the external drive but I lost both drives.

(I was able to recover most files albeit some with corruption using R-Studio , this is the best recovery software I have ever used)

This seems a bizarre occurrence to have 2 new drives fail simultaneously. I had not dropped any of the drives, the only things I can think of is unlucky coincidence or the drives were corrupted by the airport scanning machines.

Might have to move to a triple backup system in future .... doh!!!

Jarno

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Reply # 368405 16-Aug-2010 22:10

It's an X-Ray machine. No way X-Rays would affect the drives unless your laptop came out the other end smoking.

CYaBro

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Reply # 368413 16-Aug-2010 22:29

I think you have just been very unlucky.
I travelled to USA & Europe with a laptop and USB HDD and they are still running fine.

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xpd

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Reply # 368502 17-Aug-2010 07:41

Ive also put multiple drives through the airports scanners and never had any issues.
Friend of mine works at the Auckland Intl airport and hes never heard of anyone complaining about it either.

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wreck90

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Reply # 368505 17-Aug-2010 08:00

Jarno: It's an X-Ray machine. No way X-Rays would affect the drives unless your laptop came out the other end smoking.

He he, I am pretty sure it is just bad luck - really, if the scanners affected hard drives it would be front page news.

The magnetic field generated by the scanners conveyor belt motors could theoretically corrupt magnetic drives.

Not going to enjoy going back to PB Tech to replace the 2nd drive. It was a fight last time.

jonherries

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Reply # 368524 17-Aug-2010 09:09

The only other thought I just had was a humidity issue. If you went from cold dry air-con to hot and humid a few times, that would have an impact on the drives. I remember having trouble with a handycam one time in Florida.

Note: this would also have an impact on the laptop as well.

Lias

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Reply # 368547 17-Aug-2010 09:50

Did you have it as carry on the entire time?

If you checked it in as any point, it probably just got thrown around by some luggage handler.

Information wants to be free. The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

Linuxluver

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Reply # 368550 17-Aug-2010 09:55

wreck90: I recently travelled to north america with my laptop (brand new internal 2.5" drive) and a brand new external 2.5" drive.

I went through airport scanners a number of times, and both hard drives have failed.

I'm going to Toronto in December and flying Auckland / Vancouver to avoid the sillyness at US airports.
Glad Air NZ finally offer access to a North American gateway that isn't in the US. It always annoyed me I had to go through US Customs when I wasn't going to the US at all and was merely transiting - changing planes.

This time I'll go through Canadian Customs in Vancouver and the rest of the trip will be a domestic flight and I walk out of Pearson Airport in Toronto and into a taxi with no delays or hassles.

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Nety

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Reply # 368634 17-Aug-2010 13:37

I have been though a heap of airports/scanners over the years with hard drives in laptops. External hard drives and even desktop hard drives in anti static bags. Never had one fail.
One rule is that they always travel as carry on.

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Linuxluver

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Reply # 368658 17-Aug-2010 14:00

Nety: I have been though a heap of airports/scanners over the years with hard drives in laptops. External hard drives and even desktop hard drives in anti static bags. Never had one fail.
One rule is that they always travel as carry on.

Also good to keep data to a minimum and backed up on (preferably bootable) USB sticks. That way, even if everything is fried or stolen, you've still got a system if you can lay your hands on a laptop or PC of almost any kind....and not necessarily the same one.

Booting a USB stick leaves no persistent data on the 'host' computer....and the data tends to be robust.

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BlueToothKiwi

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Reply # 368695 17-Aug-2010 14:56

Unless they have changed the scanning technique and started using magnetic waves in North America - I agree - Never had a problem.....

However, I do know what you are going through... Once I had power cut - and desktop hard drive got corrupted as well as BOTH drives inside my backup NAS [a Maxtor MSS 2 set up with RAID].

Now I use SkyDrive as a third backup.

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