BLuRry wrote:
The only thing in a cellphone that could possibly be harmful to floppies is the permanent magnet in the speaker--and its field is very weak outside the phone.Given the high frequency of magnetic hotel key cards ruined by my cellphone, I'm not inclined to believe you on this one. Even if it isn't very *likely* a cell phone would erase data, it is still not a good idea to leave one on a pile of old disks that haven't been archived. Why tempt fate? :-)
While I've certainly had occasional problems with card keys, I cannot associate them with my cell phone--more likely flakey writers and low-battery readers. If you suspect your particular cell phone of being a problem, you could easily format a few disks and do an experiment. I'll bet it has nothing to do with it. Of course, I agree one should not be careless with unarchived data! But neither should one be paranoid about unproven risks. ;-) -michael Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's! Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/ "The wastebasket is our most important design tool--and it is seriously underused."