Hard Drive

The ongoing clear up got to the stuff under the computer table. First a cardboard box with a bottle of Rioja from ages ago and a sweet "Mavrodaphne of Patros". The box is out to be burnt, most of the Rioja is currently being processed (into urine if you need to ask), and the other has been put to one side for the present. The main purpose of the box was to hold up a cutlery tray which had things like screwdrivers and miscellanea and an old Toshiba which was leaning against it. I know I'll never use the Toshiba even though it gave good service in the past. The CD-rom drive has stopped working although I know that's easily mendable. I've decided to ditch it (waste I know). I had thought of putting Linux on it but without mending the CD-drive that's a problem and being realistic I know that even if I got Linux working I'd play around a little but never really use it. Anyway took the hard drive out so I can make the data, and at this point in time I've no idea what that could be, inaccessible. In the past I've walloped these things with a sledge hammer but think this time I'll just squash the pins with pliers - after all we're not talking CIA here. That reminds me that just under 20 or so years ago our lab technician borrowed the big magnet (one that was sold to schools as being just about the most powerful permanent magnet) so he could pass one of those old 3.5-inch floppies between its jaws and "wipe" it. It failed to have any effect and the disc was still readable. I was very surprised and could only come up with the explanation that in a computer drive the distances between the heads is very much smaller giving a bigger magnetic field (the jaws of our big magnet were about a cm apart). But the experience did make me wonder about all those warnings about putting discs near (say) loudspeakers which have magnets in them. Amazing that those floppies are now as dead as the dodos and dinosaurs.