magnets in HDs

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Mr Gregory Peters by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <s371034-at-student.uq.edu.au>

After reading the post on magnets in hard drives, I was somewhat
skeptical - after all, don't magnets ERASE hard drives? Anyway, I
decided to pull apart an old 1 Gb SCSI hard drive I had lying around. It
was difficult to find, but there is definitely a strong magnet in there.
It is near where the read/write head "arm" connects to the HD chassis.
It seems to be in some sort of "anti-magnet" metal enclosure, as I could
not detect it at all with a screwdriver until I pulled it completely
apart. It is very strong. There was only one magnet in this drive, but I
reckon if I had two magnets I would not be able to pull them apart. The
magnet is arc shaped, about 1.3" long x 0.5" wide x 0.2" thick. I would
love to know what kind of magnet it is if anyone knows.

Cheers,

Greg Peters
Department of Earth Sciences,
University of Queensland, Australia
Phone: 0402 841 677
http://www.geocities-dot-com/gregjpeters