This big shiny object catches my eye, so I walk closer, and it has a lever, and some lights. :P Anyways, I was walking, enjoying the potential finds on every tinkerers (who does not mind dirty 'junk') weekly holiday, in the states at least. Chances are that it won't harm the disks, but you would be taking far less of a risk putting it through the x-ray machine.ДЄs far as physical damage from other people's stuff crashing into your laptop on the conveyor belt or klutzy security guards - well, that's a different story.I was on my way to get food for my girlfriend and myself, chicken over rice with pita bread in this case, while she was busy doing work for college, which meant I could walk alone and, low and behold, it was garbage day! Good thing she was not with me, or else she would wear gloves around me and have barrels of anti bacterial soap after she saw the things I lug back. The metal detectors can be set to certain levels of sensitivity, which is why you can walk through a metal detector in a large airport like Atlanta or O'Hare with a big rednecky belt buckle on and not have it go off, but wear the same buckle and set the alarm off at smaller airports like Pittsburgh or Tampa (or at least this was the case before 09/11).Д«ecause the metal detectors work via magnetic fields, you should *never* carry any kind of magnetic media - floppy disks, hard drives, video tapes, cassettes etc - through the detectors. If the metal creates enough of a disturbance, the alarm goes off. When you pass through the detector the metal on your person - fillings, screws from surgeries, belt buckles, braces, glasses, etc - create a disturbance in the field. The metal detectors work via a magnetic field.

If you're paranoid about your film (and I am after the X-ray machine killed the film from my Cuba trip), you can get a lead-lined pouch that will protect your film. At least at the levels they use at the airport, this is *completely safe* for computer equipment, but not film (which is light sensitive). In a nutshell, X-ray machines at the airport work via light waves (or particles, I dunno I'm not a physics major). The number of risks it faces when shipped in the cargo bay is potentially huge.

The case was broken by a buy who dropped the notebook and then kicked it about twenty feet in desparate attempt to catch it.ДЄlways carry your notebook with you as carry-on. The screen was broken by a large woman who slammed the lid shut after she accidentally opened the notebook while trying to hand it back to me.

Over the years I've lost one notebook screen and one notebook case to clumsy handling by airport security personnel. However, I always open and demonstrate my own notebooks. In fact, the error rate induced in electronic instruments by cosmic ray bombardment is measurable and is a matter of some consideration in aircraft avionics, computer and instrument design. The cosmic ray incidence at altitude is more likely to cause problems in solid state circuitry. And the x-ray flux density required to wipe data on floppies would be huge. An airport carry-on luggage x-ray machine would have to be seriously messed up to present a threat to a notebook computer.

Floppy disk xray