Hard Drive + Magnet = Disaster?

[Haui]

So my neighbor brought me over a laptop that he needed fixed. He told me his mother came over and put a huge magnet right on top of it and since then, he gets a "Cannot find OS" upon bootup.

I dont know much about what magnets do, but do they just erase all the "files" on a HD or completely ruin the HD so it can never be used again?

The reason I ask is I put in a Windows XP Pro disk and started the "boot on cd" where it brought up the normal screen. It scan's the CD and then hangs on "Starting Up Windows XP Professional", the screen right before you hit F8 and choose a partion/create partion/format the HD and then install the OS. I am sure most of you know what I am talking about.

Regardless, it hangs right there and will not do anything.

Any suggestions?

 

[0roo0roo]

what kind of mother carries around giant magnets and puts them on top of drives?

most magnets aren't powerful enough to go through the case and damage the data.. but assuming it did, it can wipe out the servo tracks and then you got yourself a nice brick.
unrecoverable.

 

[Jhhnn]

Download and run the disk manufacturer's utility, either from a floppy or bootable CD. That'll tell you if the HDD is OK, or not.

It seems unlikely that the magnet had anything to do with the problem- the magnetic fields used in drive heads are very tiny, but very powerful- it takes a lot to scramble the information on the disk... electromagnetic pulse generators designed for the purpose cost thousands...

 

[Haui]

Everything is ok now. Something happened in the BIOS and the HD was not showing up.....funny!