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"I have seen unpstanding guys rub magnets over hard drives over pure apathy." Open up a spinning rust hard drive and you will find two very strong magnets insi

"I have seen unpstanding guys rub magnets over hard drives over pure apathy." Open up a spinning rust hard drive and you will find two very strong magnets inside, positioned opposite each other.

XorNot 5y ago
This isn't why it didn't work though: disks tolerate smooth magnetic field gradients just fine. To wipe them you want a chaotic, noisy electromagnet.
- exikyut 5y ago
  Wow, interesting. How does that work?!
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Basically it's the transition in field strength, not the field, which flips a bit. So you need a moving magnetic field, and you need to cause a lot of changes because HDDs have all sorts of error correction.