wilkins@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Mark Wilkins) (11/18/89)
In article <5850@lindy.Stanford.EDU> romeo@lindy.UUCP (Patrick Goebel) writes: > >(2) Is it true IN THEORY that magnetic storage media are safe from >these devices? A while ago I made the comment in this newsgroup that I thought that disk drives were safe from soft X-rays because of their RF shielding, which is required by the FCC. And yes, I do know that X-rays and radio are not the same... :-) However, you ask about floppies and tapes. Magnetic media which are passed through an x-ray machine are definitely at risk. The reason I made the comment about hard disks is that they are shielded quite well. Unshielded magnetic media definitely should not be passed through the x-ray detector. Although I haven't heard of any problems, the chances for difficulty are at least 100 times greater than with fixed disks. -- Mark Wilkins wilkins@jarthur.claremont.edu
eacj@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Julian Vrieslander) (11/19/89)
In article <3103@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> wilkins@jarthur.UUCP (Mark Wilkins) writes: > However, you ask about floppies and tapes. Magnetic media which are >passed through an x-ray machine are definitely at risk. The reason I made >the comment about hard disks is that they are shielded quite well. > Unshielded magnetic media definitely should not be passed through the >x-ray detector. Although I haven't heard of any problems, the chances for >difficulty are at least 100 times greater than with fixed disks. I agree with this advice. I recall seeing a discussion of this subject elsewhere, where a claim was made that it is not the x-rays themselves that can damage magnetic media. But some x-ray machines produce stray magnetic fields that may be strong enough to do damage. -- Julian Vrieslander Neurobiology & Behavior, W250 Mudd Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853 UUCP: {cmcl2,decvax,rochester,uw-beaver}!cornell!batcomputer!eacj INTERNET: eacj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu BITNET: eacj@CRNLTHRY
pepke@loligo (Eric Pepke) (11/20/89)
It's not the X-rays themselves that you need to worry about; it's the thumping great motors that drive the conveyor belt. Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.