Will a magnet erase my hard drive?

[Drizzt]

Government better not test any nukes near my house or I'm gonna be ****ed...

 

[Luke]

and the emp spreads out much farther then the blas from the nuclear explosion does

Not as far as i know.

the B-29 planes had been within the intense nuclear radiation zone when the bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then they would have suffered effects from the charge separation (radial) EMP

^the emp only spreads as far as the nuclear radiation... there is a less powerful emp that spreads a bit (in comparason to the explostion) further then the radiation but not enough to destroy electic devices.

But were getting pretty off the topic.

 

[Nitestick]

the B-29 planes had been within the intense nuclear radiation zone when the bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then they would have suffered effects from the charge separation (radial) EMP

i think we're talking the difference between fallout radius and blast radius here folks :/

 

[Luke]

We should really just drop the subject, were getting far off topic.

 

[Atlas91]

will the magnet in a guitar amp wipe the hard drive in my laptop? b/c my computer seems to be screwed.

 

[Yami]

It won't wipe the hard drive, but it will probably damage the laptop generally.

And an EMP would kill a computer, even if it is off. In the same way you can fry your motherboard by not grounding yourself (which I admit is difficult to do nowadays, but EMPs are hundreds times stronger than the static you can easily build up yourself).

 

[Trotter]

Wipe? No. Potentially corrupt the data on the drive? Yes.

 

[Luke]

^even then, it would have to be a pretty strong magnet...

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

I have tried a few of these tests, only time I could corrupt my drive is when i passed a magnet, rather strong magnet, could attract metal through 3 inchs of wood... across the drive, but going straight to and from it for some reason didn't harm it at all.

 

[carnageX]

Wipe? No. Potentially corrupt the data on the drive? Yes.

Happened to a friend of mine, so yes it can corrupt data (made his computer unbootable). So I know from experience it can.

^even then, it would have to be a pretty strong magnet...

Amps generally do a have a pretty strong magnet in them.