how do folks typically take laptops through airports?

[abc]

i haven't been travelling in years, and darn i haven't asked people i know but this question just came up, i mean do any of their various detectors mess up anything, say your harddisk or something... do you proactively tell the peeps ya got a laptop and stuff?

how about for 35mm photographic film, any concern with that?

 

[Keego]

you can put film in those little x-ray protected sleeves.

Laptops are checked to ensure that they turn on, and then you're ok. just say you have a laptop and show them, I dunno if they throw it through the xray machine though.

 

[gentobu]

They put mine through an x-ray machine and its working fine...for now.

 

[apoppin]

Just flew to Hawaii this week . . . Notebook computers go fine through the scanner . . . at LAX they need to removed from their case and placed on the belt . . . no problems whatsoever (other than security seemed lax . . . um, lax at LAX }

 

[Amused]

For twenty odd years I've put 35mm film through the scanners, both inside the camera, and in the standard plastic containers... and not once has it screwed up the pictures.

The scanners are also harmless to laptops, as mine have gone through them a number of times with no problem whatsoever.

 

[AgentZap]

I worked at a computer company and they gave us laptops, but to bring them to work we had to pass them through an xray machine daily. Still works

 

[Murphyrulez]

At every airport in the nation now, they make you remove your laptop from your bag and put in through the xray machine by itself. No one has asked me to turn it on though, and I have flown about 20 times since 9-11...

It don't hurt a thing!