Can a magnet destroy the hardrive if I put the magnet beside it?
493744
Yes. How efficient it is depends on the power of the magnet. A refrigerator magnet stuck to the side of your PC case probably won't do anything. A 50,000 gauss electromagnet set on top of your hard drive's cage will make quick work of the drive.\n\nWhich is also why you should not put external hard drives near your CRT monitor -- CRT monitors are giant elecromagnets.
991087
Depends, if the attraction force of the magnet is bigger then the force of friction of the disc with the oil combined with the force necessary to break the surface tension. The weight and size of the disk are also very important.
669781
Magnetic property of a material is due to the arrangement of Domains in it. If you are not of science background, simply think it as it is the arrangement of atoms of the material, which is responsible for its magnetism. If you provide a permanent magnet with electric supply, the arrangement of atoms in it will be disturbed resulting in loss or decrease in its magnetism.\nNot only the electric supply, but heating or even strong jerks can also lead to the disturbed atomic arrangement and therefore decreased or completely lost magnetism.
1092759
I had the same problem when I learned about both of them. \nBut now think of it in a different way. You are assuming that the magnetic FORCE that magnets have on certain metals. But if you think about it carefully they don't create or destroy energy. \nIf you don't beleive me consider a piece of iron with only gravity working on. But its height is 0 so it has no Potential or Kinetic energy. But now let's say you bring in a magnet. Now naturally that will make the iron bar rise and stick to the magnet. Now a natural assumption would be that you just created potential energy because the height of the iron bar just increased. But now you have to consider the fact that magnet is still putting some force on the Iron bar. So no change in potential energy occured. No change in Kinetic energy occured once the bar stuck to it. and the Energy needed to bring the bar up could be accounted by the energy needed to bring iron bar in. This shows that there was no energy created.  \nI think that you are trying to overthink the problem. I think this should help good luck.
1081450
yes, assuming the poles were damn near touching. as for the distance, magnetic force vs distance is an exponential curve so technically the force never diminishes. you have to set a lower threshold to say that the force has diminished once below that threshold, e.g <1lb.
92186
the magnet in the speaker will not only erase the recording on the tape it will leave magnetized spots on the tape where the speaker touched. The tape will then need to be demagnetized before being used again .
823892
In this reference, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnets near the end of the article there is a formula for the force between bar magnets very close together.  You wll need to know the magnetic field strength of the magnet.  Also, for sliding, you will need to know the coefficient of friction.
371021
Check to see if its full, if you want to erase all of the data on it ,, just grab a magnet and drag it across
260188
DO NOT do that!  It would be dangerous (creates a fire hazard), and one of the protective devices (fuse or circuit breaker) would probably trip under load regardless.
997877
that's sweet here i think is a link for a patent. I was thinking on how to make something like that, accelerating itself but i failed :P another of my questions was proven wrong leading me to the conclusion it is impossible for magnets to be used in mine.\n\nhttp://www.inventhelp.com/contactform_patent.asp?id=106&wcw=overture&GCID=S17330x002&KEYWORD=patent+office&MATCHTYPE=search
140684
I guess it can be magnetized. I don't think there would be any problem even if its in the form of a moebus strip, or any form at all. Anyway I am curious for other answers.
416574
take the hard drive out  of machine nad either take it to pieces and smash the silver discs inide or smash it to pieces with a very large hammer. Don't forget your safety goggles!
1013301
a tao is right! Gerry needs to stick to fixin sandwiches! If you get 5 years out of a drive you are doing good. The medium that stores data on a hardrive is the same material used on cassettes. Iron oxide or rust in laypeoples terms.
478897
Yes if sufficient force is applied the force of impact will negate the magnetism. This is because the charged particles (electrons, neutrons, protons) will collide and confuse the flow of energy. Unless you have an elctromagnet then the magnetism will survive.\n\nSometimes if you drop a compass you will also make it useless as they are also magnetic
54860
When talking about a magnet large enough to be handled (and broken), it can be thought of as a collection of smaller magnets.  These smaller magnets are all aligned from north to south poles on each end.  If you got two 1" x 1/2" magnets, and put them end to end, N to S, they would make a magnet double the length of the original, and the ends would attract.  If you take the now 2" magnet apart, you have two magnets.  In practice, this is exactly what happened when you broke the magnet.  The pieces are still magnetic, with a north and south pole.  Therefore if you take the 2 pieces and put north to north or south to south, they will repel, and vice versa if north to south, they will attract.  No one yet has found just a south pole, or just a north pole, and that causes a stir in the scientific community.  You can keep crushing the magnet to bits and the tiny fragments will still have a north and south pole, and act like tiny little bar magnets.
808366
Hi!\n\nFormatting your hard drive would not cause any hardware damages unto it. It is basically accessing the drive normally however removing the things from the drive. \n\nThe drive would still spin at 7200rpm(normally) and this is within the threshold of damaging the drive. You will not strain the hard drive when formatting a hard disk.\n\nIn fact, I would say frequent formatting is recommended.(twice a year) or some even say once every 3 months. It would definitely speed up your computer and organize all the cluttered stuffs you accumulate over the time.
157897
The hard drive does have a magnetic trace of previous files until they have been written over a certain number of times.  This trace can be retrieved by certain software or hardware.  If you suspect that the computer you have has had illicit material on it, then I'd suggest you overwrite these files.  One freeware program that I've heard of does this.  It's called Eraser.  You can find it by going to the site below and searching for the "Software/Project"  and "Eraser".