Degaussing or eraseing tapes with supermagnets

[WandillupVideos]

will using magnets on a tape damage it in any way?

[cosminserban91]

You have to keep the magnet on videotape sitting still? or need to make moves?

[cosminserban91]

I have a magnetic hard disk and can not understand how I could erase miniDV video tape, and then new records are bad qualities. I need help .. thanks.

[SuperMagnetMan]

@cosminserban91 - I am not sure what the question is. I video a class I tech every monday and once I copy it off the tape I erase the tape with my magnet and use it again the next week without any problems. I am filming in HDV on a Canon XH A1 and capturing in FCP.

[noelgold1]

I recently played a vhs tape and it displayed video which I thought I recoreded over with my old fullsize camcorder camera (the carry on the shoulder type). To my excitment I tried playing that part of the video but was not able to play the portion (I thought I recorded over) a second time. I know the video that I erased is still on the tape somewhere (maybe on another area on the tape) but since it was recorded over with other video, its not playing. How can I recover the erased video?

[gaz52]

Does this really work? I don't want to buy a big powerful magnet then find out it doesn't work.

[SuperMagnetMan]

Yes, it works. I use these all the time to erase my mini DV tapes and other tapes as well. I made a custom tape erasing stand for a Hollywood video production company using the 2 inch diameter x 1 inch thick N50 magnets and as fast as they could slide the tapes through the magnets they were virgin clean. Their engineers tested it on their machines and said it was like virgin new.

[dleeboss]

@SuperMagnetMan

where can I purchase these magnets? I have a lot of VHS & Digital Tapes that I need to erase and this seems like a good solution for me.

[SuperMagnetMan]

You have to do a low level format on the drive but it should work unless something else was wrong with the drive.

[gaz52]

Will these magnets work for audio tapes as well?

[killman369547]

hmm i wonder what your custom 10000+ gauss magnet would do

[ReikaiDemon]

What about harddrives?

[hempaw]

same thing, but it requires more passes

[SuperMagnetMan]

I have developed one of these using 2 inch N50 cubes above and below any 5.25 inch or smaller hard drive and it erases them like they had never been formatted.

[gaz52]

But am I right in saying the hard drive doesn't work anymore?

[modmadmike2]

I think modern hard drives store their sector information on flash memory (which you can stick in a MRI and it will still work because it is impervious to magnetism) so taking a high power magnet would simply clear all the data (including the MBR) in a way similar to running [dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda] on a linux machine. But i'm not guaranteeing it. I could test it but i don't own any high power magnets.

[hitechguy18]

@SuperMagnetMan

Certain HDD Brands have Voice coil Localization data on the platters

It Should be noted that HDD Bearing "Do Not LOW Level Format "

Are HDDs where they wont regenerate this Vital Data after you wipe them

- Renders the HDD unusable

- So if your Trying to reuse/resell the HDD after it wont work at all

Without the Voice Coil Localization data the head wont know if its in the right position to wire/read

> Should never Put a magnet nr these HDD's if you intend to use them after

[RiverCityRandomness]

0:00-0:03= LMAO.

[christiankarlsson]

What is the disadvantage of using just one big magnet for all types of erasing?

[taliban0king]

the cost of a big magnet

[christiankarlsson]

Yes, but if you are going to degausing all sizes of tapes and drives, the cost will be even bigger if you have to buy both big and smaller magnets.

So is there any disadvantage of using just one big one for all types of tapes and drives?

[OptimusGonzoo]

This is quite some awesome stuff you have here Super Magnet Man!