Robby on Rails: iSight magnet is teh suck

iSight magnet is teh suck

Robby Russell — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:41:00 -0500

We picked up an iSight for those of us in the office who have older powerbooks without a builtin webcam… and I was playing with the magnet that came with it and somehow didn’t think twice about setting it down on my laptop… loud noise… 2 seconds later…. black screen!

...yeah… I lost a hard drive.

Fun times. :-)

UPDATE

...the magnet is now in the garbage. TAKE THAT!

UPDATE #2

I’m not the only person that this happened to…

It’s interesting to hear so many people say, “It takes a really powerful magnet to destroy a hard drive. I doubt that happend in your case. That magnet is not strong enough.”

...perhaps it is.

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by null

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:04:11 -0500

Doooood, I did exactly the same thing. Is it just me or is it slightly ridiculous to supply a magnet with the iSight in the first place? I mean not all of us know the in’s and out’s of a friggin hard-drive!

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Wanker

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:44:45 -0500

I can only laugh. WOW OMG LOLZ!!! In the words of Eazy E—“ya shoulda known better”.

Do people really still say “teh suck” in 2006? OMG LOL

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Amr

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:18:53 -0500

This is really weird, cuz HD’s do come with very powerful magnets right next to the platter, that is what powers the arm assembly. The powerbook HD’s must have an aluminum enclosure.. even then its odd.

I just fixed my old 500 mhz ibook a month ago and there are at least two magnets embedded in the ibooks. and I was playing around with a fairly powerful magnet trying to find the embedded magnets on my ibook. I guess I just was lucky.

you can also find where they are by running a quarter or any iron/nickel coin on the sids of the ibook. The magnet that controlls the screen sleep functions is embedde in the lower right corner if my G4 ibook and is strong enough to hold a quarter coin.

good to know.

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by John

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:52:57 -0500

The magnet probably didn’t affect the bits on the platter. If that were the case, the drive would likely just have data damage but wouldn’t be dead. Given the loud noise, my first guess would be that the Big Honkin’ Magnet deformed one of the drive arms and the drive head augered into the platter as a result. No fun, that!

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Bill Gates

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:29:54 -0500

Yep, magnets will do that to a hard drive.

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Christophe

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 02:58:44 -0500

Sorry to say that, but… Pwn3d !

(condoleances for your HD)

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Robby Russell

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 15:39:28 -0500

Matthew…. I said that I was playing with the magnet... as people often do with things that are neat. I was using the notebook mount… but the magnet just intrigued me and I felt like a kid… and now I have a dead hard drive. ;-)

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Matthew Williams

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:29:53 -0500

Why didn’t you use the notebook mount that it comes with? The magnetic mount is meant for the cinema displays.

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by DGM

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:26:28 -0500

Despite all the assurances from people that computers and HD’s are shielded, I still treat magnets as evil around the computer.

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Winston

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 07:40:45 -0500

I didn’t think you could affect a HD to that degree with a magnet. Guess you showed them. ouch

http://www.pcworld.com/article/116572-1/article.html

“A magnet powerful enough to disturb the electrons in flash would be powerful enough to suck the iron out of your blood cells,” says Frank. The same goes for hard drives.

=====

“In the real world, people are not losing data from magnets,” says Bill Rudock, a tech-support engineer with hard-drive maker Seagate.

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Sammy

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 05:22:57 -0500

OUCH. Condolences.

"iSight magnet is teh suck" by Joe

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 02:01:14 -0500

Ouch… That sucks. You’d think they’d shield hard drives now or something.