solar flare - can it erase hard drives?

I was wondering if someone could put to rest this question:

Can the electromagnetic radiation from this solar flare erase hard
disks or other magnetic media?

I guess not (at least this time)... hard drive's still here, not erased.

In article ,
Mad Scientist wrote:
Can the electromagnetic radiation from this solar flare erase hard
disks or other magnetic media?

No. Except insofar as it might indirectly cause difficulties for software
or other hardware, which might respond poorly and mistakenly decide that
altering the contents of the disk was the right thing to do.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Mad Scientist wrote:
Can the electromagnetic radiation from this solar flare erase hard
disks or other magnetic media?

No. Except insofar as it might indirectly cause difficulties for software
or other hardware, which might respond poorly and mistakenly decide that
altering the contents of the disk was the right thing to do.

Hmm ... not even the x-ray radiation? I wouldn't have thought it would
have been very healthy, for say, laptop hardrives on the ISS.

Nick

(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) writes:

In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Mad Scientist wrote:
Can the electromagnetic radiation from this solar flare erase hard
disks or other magnetic media?

No. Except insofar as it might indirectly cause difficulties for software
or other hardware, which might respond poorly and mistakenly decide that
altering the contents of the disk was the right thing to do.

Hmm ... not even the x-ray radiation? I wouldn't have thought it would
have been very healthy, for say, laptop hardrives on the ISS.

X-rays are not a significant problem for the magnetic materials in hard-drives.
The reason people worry about running hard-drives through airport security
is that they are afraid the _magnetic fields_ inside the apparatus will wipe
the magnetic disk.


-- Gordon D. Pusch

perl -e '$_ = \n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'

In article ,
Nicholas Fitzpatrick wrote:
Can the electromagnetic radiation from this solar flare erase hard
disks or other magnetic media?
No. Except insofar as it might indirectly cause difficulties for software
or other hardware, which might respond poorly...

Hmm ... not even the x-ray radiation? I wouldn't have thought it would
have been very healthy, for say, laptop hardrives on the ISS.

X-rays don't affect magnetic media at all. (Much of the concern about
passing magnetic media through, e.g., airport X-ray machines is baseless
superstition. To the extent that it's legitimate, the issue is magnetic
fields associated with the equipment, rather than the X-rays themselves.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Nicholas Fitzpatrick wrote:
Can the electromagnetic radiation from this solar flare erase hard
disks or other magnetic media?
No. Except insofar as it might indirectly cause difficulties for software
or other hardware, which might respond poorly...

Hmm ... not even the x-ray radiation? I wouldn't have thought it would
have been very healthy, for say, laptop hardrives on the ISS.

X-rays don't affect magnetic media at all. (Much of the concern about
passing magnetic media through, e.g., airport X-ray machines is baseless
superstition. To the extent that it's legitimate, the issue is magnetic
fields associated with the equipment, rather than the X-rays themselves.)

Also - those X-rays can't reach the ground - Earth's atmosphere is
equivalent of roughly 10 meters of water. If I recall correctly that is
deeper than most used-fuel basins in nuclear power plants.

Henry Spencer wrote:
X-rays don't affect magnetic media at all.

True, at least for plausible fluences.

(Much of the concern about passing magnetic media through, e.g.,
airport X-ray machines is baseless superstition. To the extent that
it's legitimate, the issue is magnetic fields associated with the
equipment, rather than the X-rays themselves.)

I think it's very legitimate. Conveyer belts, or rather the motors
that drive them, can easily erase tapes, diskettes, and disks, and
other magnetic media on the belt.
--
Keith F. Lynch - - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.

In article ,
Keith F. Lynch wrote:
(Much of the concern about passing magnetic media through, e.g.,
airport X-ray machines is baseless superstition. To the extent that
it's legitimate, the issue is magnetic fields associated with the
equipment, rather than the X-rays themselves.)

I think it's very legitimate. Conveyer belts, or rather the motors
that drive them, can easily erase tapes, diskettes, and disks, and
other magnetic media on the belt.

While it is possible, "easily" is a vast overstatement. Motors usually
don't produce strong external magnetic fields, and magnetic media are much
more robust than people commonly think -- to have any effect at all, a
magnet must be either very strong or very close (practically touching the
media).
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

(=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_Ekl=F6f?=) writes:
Also - those X-rays can't reach the ground - Earth's atmosphere is
equivalent of roughly 10 meters of water. If I recall correctly that is
deeper than most used-fuel basins in nuclear power plants.

Curious. So if I sunbaked on the bottom of a 1 metre deep swimming pool,
(with a suitable snorkle) I should expect to get sunburnt almost as
severely as when lying on the deck (if we can disregard for the moment
the not insignificant reflection at the air-water interface)?
--
John Savage (news address invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)