Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

B

boomslang

Member
Hey chaps,

HELP!!, i'm about to run the gauntlet of post 9/11 airport security with 2 very valuable hard drives (LaCie, D2...) actually it's the raw footage from my recently completed film on the drives which is valuable. I'm very protective of this and can't get the straight scoop on airport x-rays, etc.

Does anyone have any experience/ideas on how to 100% protect the drive data. Is it safe to run through an Xray. I can't turn them on to prove they work. I don't want to let go of the drives (or the master DV tapes for that matter) at any point in my journey.

I cannot risk losing any of this data.Vexxed.

Thanks very much in advance for your insights.

Jesse
 
Re: Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

You should be fine, I've never had a problem with X-rays scrambling a hard drive and I've never heard of this happening to the millions of other folks that fly with laptops.
 
Re: Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

Digital media is fine with x-rays, it is film that you have to watch out for (anything over 800ASA). The X-rays are not magnetic and will not harm your camera, laptop or any other digital media. Now, the wands that they use, that's another story. Those are magnetic, so don't let them get near your notbook, dv tapes, dvx100 or any other digital media with those.
 
Re: Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

The wands used for metal detection. are indeed electromagnetic devices but are several orders of magnitude too weak for having any effect on magnetic media.
 
Re: Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

[quote author=boomslang link=board=Events;num=1088707006;start=0#0 date=07/01/04 at 11:36:46]HELP!!, i'm about to run the gauntlet of post 9/11 airport security with 2 very valuable hard drives (LaCie, D2...) actually it's the raw footage from my recently completed film on the drives which is valuable. I'm very protective of this and can't get the straight scoop on airport x-rays, etc.[/quote]

The X-ray won't be a problem, but be advised that many airports now have MRI based equipment down in the luggage scanning area, so carry on those Hard Drives with you.

Here in the states, the Post Office has similar MRI equipment. We have had three separate instances where tapes have been erased when mailed... had to switch to UPS or Fed-X... though I think the real answer is DVD...
 
Re: Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

Actually x-rays, like all radiation, will affect electromagnetic media. The issue is how much power they send down the pike. Most x-rays do not send down enough power to blank any form of electronic media without long term exposure. And most hard drives are smart, capable of handling minute damage to the recording surface.

My LaCie pocket drives, with twice the data density as the D2, survive regular trips through the air port.
 
Re: Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

"Actually x-rays, like all radiation, will affect electromagnetic media"... not fully true. Although X-rays are eletromagnetic waves they do not change magnetic media behavier even under high dose rates. Very strong gamma radiation (x-ray) are sometimes used for molecular structure analysis on magnetic materials, but never for "demagnitizing"
 
Re: Airport XRays & Hard Drive Safety?

[quote author=andre link=board=Events;num=1088707006;start=0#8 date=07/05/04 at 00:29:02]"Actually x-rays, like all radiation, will affect electromagnetic media"... not fully true. Although X-rays are eletromagnetic waves they do not change magnetic media behavier even under high dose rates. Very strong gamma radiation (x-ray) are sometimes used for molecular structure analysis on magnetic materials, but never for "demagnitizing"[/quote]

Interesting!
 
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