magnetic screwdriver + hard drive = shot?

[Thermite Paste]

my friend got a 160 gb sata hdd. and he installed it with a magnetic screwdriver now, when i try to install windows for him, it says the disk has no free space. is his drive shot?

 

[nst6563]

chances are the drive came with a silly little partition that contained the drive installation software. delete all partitions, format, retry.

All I ever use in my system are magnetic screwdrivers (nothing that will lift a car mind you, just enough to hold the screw on the end) and have NEVER in over 15 years had a problem with a magnetic screwdriver.

 

[mjz_5]

my friend got a 160 gb sata hdd. and he installed it with a magnetic screwdriver now, when i try to install windows for him, it says the disk has no free space. is his drive shot?

does the screwdriver plug into an outlet?

I recommend going to http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

has everything you need

 

[trungma]

I highly doubt a magnetic screw driver would do anything to the drive. Remember that the magnets that control the harddrive actuators are probably hundreds of times stronger and they do not corrupt the data on the disk.

 

[Thermite Paste]

ok. could it be a defective hard drive then?

 

[ciggy50]

chances are the drive came with a silly little partition that contained the drive installation software. delete all partitions, format, retry

i agree

 

[Thermite Paste]

ok, next chance i have, ill reformat it. also, i just remembered the screwdriver had a big, open magnet on the end. and i think my friend, not knowing what it could do, might have accidentall tocuched the magnet to the hdd a few times. would that still not have affected it?

 

[nst6563]

the case around a hdd is enought to shield it from anything you can put up against it except for exceptionally strong magnets. You have to remember that the head inside is controlled by a Neodymium magnet (two or more actually) that can pretty much smash your finger and leave a good mark to boot. So I highly doubgt the screwdriver did ANYTHING except screw in the screw.

simply formatting it will not get rid of the small partition if it exists, you must delete the partition and recreate one for the entire drive. I believe the XP installation has this option in it when you chose what drive to install to.

 

[Soujiro]

The magnetic strength at the end of all magnetic screwdrivers is very little. All it can do is pick up screws, small nuts and bolts and maybe 2 or 3 paperclips. Small cubes of neodynium magnets do not affect the drive either. I stuck like 5 on the hard drive shell (Don't ask) and my data is still intact. So a screwdriver messing up a hard drive will be very surprising to me.

 

[Snugglebear]

Probably not. I've lost track of how many times I've touched my magnetic screwdriver to the drive housing. Hell, touching small magnets to floppies hardly ever does anything (yet they will happily self-corrupt from sitting on my desk for a month).

 

[nst6563]

(yet they will happily self-corrupt from sitting on my desk for a month).

man...that's so true too...and it PISSES ME OFF TO NO END!

But I don't have to worry about it since my floppy drive died also. POS thing was only used about once every 2 months or so...but I've vowed to do away with it....

 

[elm669]

Well I nearly lost my 13gig western digital to a magnetic screwdriver a few months ago, Let's just say it would discolor a monitor BAD taking about 2-3 degausses to fix and pick up about a pound of weight Of course it came in contact with some pretty powerful magnets before though..