How come a hard drive erases everything if you hold a magnet against it?

I wonder how come your hard drive erases everything when it gets near a magnet. How did that happen?

Asker: tony, 17 years old

Answer

A hard disk is a magnetized metal disk. The direction of the magnetic fields on the disk can be changed by small electromagnets in the read and write head. All information on a hard drive is thus encoded using magnetic fields.

If you keep another magnet nearby, those magnetic fields on the disk will all be mixed up (after all, they will react to the new magnetic field) and the information will be erased.

Answered by

drs. Joachim Ganseman

computer science, digital signal processing, with focus on audio and music data editing and processing

How come a hard drive erases everything if you hold a magnet against it?

University of Antwerp
Prinsstraat 13 2000 Antwerp
http://www.uantwerpen.be

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