"Pearson Pete"@LLL-MFE (01/16/85)
If you're worried about steel becoming magnetized, then think about soft iron, which cannot. Actually, magnetic fields drop off so fast with distance that you probably don't really have to worry about stray magnetic fields. (To the extent that a magnetic field looks like a dipole field, it must fall off like 1/r**3.) For peace of mind, try waving a magnet around an expendable floppy. You'll be impressed at how close you have to get before you start seeing errors.