Worried about external HD on flight...

[darweth]

Hello Ubuntu friends. I sometimes get paranoid over the stupidest things. I am flying to Vegas tonight to stay with my good friend for 12 days. She has a MAC (I have never used one) and I wanted to access my music collection AND movies AND photos while I am there. I ran out and bought a Seagate 320gb 7200.10 drive + Vantec enclosure for this purpose. Formatted the baby in the HORRIBLE FAT32 filesystem and it filled it up! I went through all this work and now I am having concerns and second thoughts of bringing it. :D

Everything from fear of scanners damaging data (okay, not much... I know people bring Laptops, iPods, etc. all of the time) to fear of being stopped for carrying it on (the real fear). I would not trust my drive in stow-away and would prefer to bring it on in a little messenger bag. I am just worried will see a slim black aluminum Vantec case as a threat and take it away or something! PARANOIA! Some of this data is only on the drive because I decided to use it as a back-up as well. Are my fears silly? With the security-state and fear of objects on domestic flights, I am just concerned. Should I just take the damn drive and not think about it?

btw --- this is a domestic flight from NYC to Vegas.

[Somenoob]

Keep it on a bag in the plane and not the one in the cargo.

[JamieC]

I'm not an expert, but I think they should let you on.

If not, you may be asked to put it in the luggage hold, I'd prepare for that possibility if I were you. If you have a bag you could pad it using something, maybe bubble wrap or towels or something?

[mcduck]

Keep it in your hand luggage and it should be fine. Also, scanners used on airports are based on x-rays, not electromagnetic induction, so they do not damage hard drives.

[~LoKe]

Honestly, I would just box it up, pad it, wrap it in clothing if I have to, and toss it in the cargo area.

[Josh1]

I've seen loads of people with laptops + external harddrives on planes.. You should be fine!

[mips]

It will be fine !

Trust me...
http://www.sledgehammeronline.com/img-color/sledgehammer_5en.jpg
http://www.sledgehammeronline.com/sle5-5.htm (http://www.sledgehammeronline.com/sle5-5.htm)

[FuturePilot]

Just don't check it in. They tend to handle baggage roughly and that's definitely not good for a hard drive.

[Duppy]

If you wrapped it in towels then it should be ok.

You should be worrying if it was a laptop with an LCD screen but its hasnt got a screen to break so it should be ok.

Still, ask if you can take it on hand luggage.

[mips]

Just don't check it in. They tend to handle baggage roughly and that's definitely not good for a hard drive.

Putting your hard drive inside your clothing luggage would be fine. the non operational Gś are nothing compared to what it was designed for.

[ububaba]

Keep it on a bag in the plane and not the one in the cargo.

Would they let you do it if you look like a person from the Middle East?:rolleyes:

[Kateikyoushi]

I used to keep mine in my hand luggage, no damage so far neither to xfs nor ext and even the fat partition survived.

[prizrak]

You won't have a problem in general they allow electronics on without a problem. I was asked about a USB drive before (basically the woman didn't know what it was) it was fine once I told her what it was. NYC security tends to be sort of lax for going out of NYC it's when you fly from other places to NYC they get paranoid.