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To beat a dead horse some more: 1 - X-rays. I remember some years ago reading the letters column in Byte. Some physicists were sitting around one day, and got on the subject of X-rays vs. magnetic media, and couldn't really see any connection. Being physicists and all, however, they decided to go for empirical data. Reaching back into the thing I call a memory, I believe they zapped floppies with something on the order of 10 times a dental X-ray machine, to no ill effect. In other words, don't sweat the X-rays. 2 - Metal detectors/magnetic fields, etc. At one company I worked at, some friends of mine and I, as SysAdmins are wont to do, were sitting around, talking about data on floppies, and magnetic fields. Needless to say, we tried various things, finally ending up by putting a floppy between the outside of a cubicle, and holding it in place with (don't know if you've seen these) a "magnetic coathanger." The principle is that the coathanger has a hook on one side, attached to a magnetic plate, that you can just slap on any old metallic cubicle wall. A fairly strong magnetic field to hold one's coat, no? The result? Zero damage to data on floppy (we compared the files, byte for byte, with their originals). I guess that the magnetic fields used by floppy drives are very strong, but only in the localized area. So, in summation: of course, going through very strong magnetic fields might affect your data, but if it's not strong enough to cause your coat buttons to start to levitate, I wouldn't worry overly much about it. Ken