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A fridge magnet can destroy a hard drive in a PC, but you need a stronger one. A video shows a notebook being destroyed.
In theory, magnets can be used to corrupt data. If a powerful magnet is brought into contact with the magnetic platter, it will corrupt them and make the data useless.
If a magnet comes too close to the disk drive, it will be erased. These drives store information as tiny magnetic regions on a spinning metal disk, and a large enough magnet will trash the contents of the disk in no time.
It won’t. Hard drives and RAM are not the same. When you put the magnets back in the computer, they will still work. If you put a magnet on a CD drive, it won’t ruin it.
It has been said that if you put a magnet near your laptop it will ruin the hard drive. The tech legend says that household magnets can interfere with a hard drive. If you put a magnet on a mechanical hard drive, it can wipe the data off it.
In the world of entertainment, the idea of magnets wiping out hard drives is very popular. Walter White tried to destroy evidence on a hard drive in the show. Are our fears about magnets related to old tech?
Bill Frank told PCWorld in 2004 that the power needed to suck the iron out of your blood cells would be enough. Hard drives are not easy to wipe because of their resistance to magnetic interference.
The data on the platter is not affected. It will take a very strong magnet to change the data on the hard disk drive. Various computer components that are vulnerable to magnets can be found in the Super User Q&A post.