Someone in our IT department has a large number of hard drives that
he needs to "wipe" clean of all information. Apparently this is a
time-consuming process using a computer, and he wondered if he could
just "walk" the hard drives though the stray field of one our
magnets. I told him that 1) it might quench our magnet and 2) it
might not wipe the hard drive, but it got me to wondering if anyone
out there has tried this novel method. At least it would be worth a
laugh if anyone had any anecdotes to share!
My anecdote is related: a woman was interested in magnetic fields
for "healing" so I asked her to sit in the stray field of our
unshielded 500 and tell me what she was experiencing. She sat down
and immediately reported an "aura" and lots of "energy" (funny, I've
never felt anything). Then she told me she had seen images of Jesus
and Mary appear on photos that were already developed. OK, I've had
enough, I got her out of the lab.
As for the hard drives, my answer is still "not with my magnets!".
Neil
Neil E. Jacobsen, Ph.D.
NMR Facility Manager
Department of Chemistry
119 Old Chemistry
1306 E. University
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
520-621-8146
FAX 520-621-8407
Received on Tue Jan 05 2010 - 07:38:21 MST