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    Flash Drive & Airport Scanners

    Discussion in 'Accessories' started by Apollo13, Nov 17, 2007.

  1. Apollo13

    Apollo13 100% 16:10 Screens

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    Thought it would be prudent to check before I put it through the scanner next week, that airport scanners (for carry-on) don't harm the data on flash drives.

    CDs and hard drives I'm 99.9% sure are safe; floppies I would assume aren't, since film isn't, but that doesn't affect me. Flash drives, I don't know. The model is Kingston DataTraveler 2 GB USB 2.0 if that makes any difference.
     
    Apollo13, Nov 17, 2007
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  2. skriefal

    skriefal Notebook Consultant

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    I carried two USB flash drives through airport security scanners twice weekly for nearly a year -- and never had any problems.
     
    skriefal, Nov 17, 2007
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  3. zoomster

    zoomster Notebook Enthusiast

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    Basically you wouldn't have a problem with flash drives going through the airport x-rays since its the flash drive does not store its data on a magnetic strip. The x-rays does not erase the data when a floppy disk pass through it but rather the magnetic field emitted by the huge transformers that are utilized to operate the x-ray machines.
     
    zoomster, Dec 2, 2007
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  4. stabile007

    stabile007 Notebook Guru

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    As someone who works at an airport, I can safely say I carry my flash drives through on a daily basis multiple times without any issues. Same with hard drives etc. Just be aware current US Airport Regulations (If that is where you are flying through) require that you remove the laptop from the bag and cases that they may be in and place them into a bin by itself. The same goes for portable DVD players, Projectors and any other large electronic items you may have.

    CD's and Hard Drives are also unaffected. Floppy disks I am not sure about as I never used them but I know zip disks are ok to go through so I imagine floppys may be ok as well. Film up to 800 ISO speed are ok to go through as well but you are allowed in the US to request a physical inspection of film in lieu of X-Ray screening.

    Thats probably a lot more then you needed to hear though :)
     
    stabile007, Dec 4, 2007
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