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crooner · Sep 9, 2005, 08:58 AM

I knew it would happen at some point...
Last night I was installing a PCI card into my dual 2.7 G5 when the retaining screw fell from the precarious grip of my screwdriver and into the guts of my Mac.

The Mac was upright when I was doing this, so the screws - yes, two of them - fell into the plastic assembly that lines the inside of the back of the case. Naturally, I cannot see them and have no idea where, exactly, they are.

Short of just unplugging this Mac and holding it upside-down hoping for the screws to fall out, what other methods have you folks used to get these little bastards outa your Macs?

HELP!

Thanks.

tooki · Sep 9, 2005, 09:27 AM

Magnets are your friends. They make magnets on a stick for fishing out screws. But you probably will just need to shake it free.

And in the future, use strongly magnetized screwdrivers so that you don't drop screws. (Don't believe those people who tell you that magnets and hard disks don't mix: every hard disk has two EXTREMELY powerful magnets inside it.)

tooki

crooner · Sep 9, 2005, 09:45 AM

Thanks, tooki!

Maflynn · Sep 9, 2005, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by tooki

(Don't believe those people who tell you that magnets and hard disks don't mix: every hard disk has two EXTREMELY powerful magnets inside it.)

tooki

But those powerful makes read/write the data, which is stored in magnetic form. Wouldn't a foreign magnet cause some chnages on the disk platter?

Eriamjh · Sep 9, 2005, 11:38 AM

A little screwdriver magnet isn't going to make a dent in the data of a HD if you stay away from it.

zac4mac · Sep 9, 2005, 12:49 PM

No - those magnets move the arm that the heads are on and spin the drive. The read/write heads are electromagnets. The drive and arm magnets are neodymium-cobalt permanent magnets. An external neodymium magnet over the drive platters WILL cause damage.

Z

tooki · Sep 9, 2005, 01:50 PM

Basically, it's very difficult to cause data loss using a permanent magnet. It takes an electromagnet with an alternating field (such as used in a bulk disk/tape eraser or a CRT degaussing coil) to really need to worry. I mean, I wouldn't affix a floppy disk to the fridge using a magnet, but at the same time, a magnetized screwdriver hear a hard disk can't do any harm. It's not powerful enough, the field is not dynamic enough, and in a hard disk, the platters are protected by more than a thin plastic sheet.

And seriously -- the actuator magnets inside the disk are VERY powerful. I'm sure the static magnetic field they subject the platters to is much more powerful than just about any permanent magnet you could apply externally.

tooki

reader50 · Sep 9, 2005, 01:51 PM

http://barefeats.com/quick.html

Skim down to the August 12, 2005 entry. Sounds like it's right up your alley.

P · Sep 9, 2005, 04:16 PM

The risk of damaging a modern harddrive with a magnet is usually overstated. If you have a box of floppy disks, and in particular those stupid 5 1/4" ones from the olden days, and store them next to a powerful magnet for weeks and months, then you might have a problem - in particular if the box for the floppies is a metal file cabinet, so the actual box is a magnet. Used to happen with old phones that could have very powerful magnets inside them. Because of this, it was a standard warning to newbies back in the eighties, and the precaution has lived on and magnified itself because noone really knows where it comes from.

crooner · Sep 9, 2005, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by reader50

http://barefeats.com/quick.html

Skim down to the August 12, 2005 entry. Sounds like it's right up your alley.

reader50, fantastic! That's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a million.

Gotta go find where I have a magnet hidden somewhere around here now. I'll try "that drawer" in the kitchen that everyone has where all the bizarre stuff gets stowed.