hi all
a bit of advice please ,i have a pc that im bringing to canada and will be going in freight but for security im thinking of taking the hard drive out and taking it on the flight , has anyone done this? will they allow a piece of dead hard ware on a flight, i read somewhere if you cant power an elec device up they wont let it on a flight? also has anyone taken a pc - not a laptop -on a flight in the cabin?
thanks
steve

I once was not permitted to carry on a walkman. I had dropped and broken it on the way to the airport and when I went through sercurity, because I it could not be turned on, they wouldn't let me carry it on. This was on a flight out of Vancouver.

I have a Shuttle PC (the black box to the right of the monitor) and took it on a flight from Regina SK to Washington DC, and then a week later from DC to London UK and didnt have any problems. They were interested and asked what it was but after scanning it and wiping it down with thier little cloth they were fine. It had a hard drive and all the other usual PC parts inside it, so I imagine you would be ok. Couldn't hurt to call them up just to check though.

I regularly carry hard drives both in and out of cases on planes and have never had any issues. Unless you are packing your system in flight case, I would highly recommend removing the hard drives and putting them in anti static bags in your hand luggage.

The hard drives are probably not going to like the rough handling of the freight people.

I'm not so sure: I believe modern hard drives are rated for over 200g peak forces when they're powered off. Maybe if they threw it out of the plane onto tarmac it would be in trouble, but normal handling shouldn't break them.

Best to call and find out. If they say it's OK, get them to send you a letter saying so in case you have any trouble at the airport.

My thoughts were "better to be safe than sorry", after spending the last 5 years in the data recovery business, hard drives can be unpredictable at the best of times!

I personally wouldn't trust my data with baggage handlers, but the choice is yours.

We brought a hard drive back from Scotland, went through Customs in Vancouver and had no problems at all. They had hubs remove it from his carry-on luggage and then they scanned it. They showed more interest in the other things in our carry-on (picture frames, etc) than the hard drive!

Oggy

EDIT: Should mention this was October 2004

Hi,
I would only carry a laptop or hard drive as cabin luggage, at height the temperature in the aircraft hold could drop to very cold levels.
In a previous job I knew of at least two engineers who had their laptops wiped by the cold temps of the luggage hold.
Cheers
Jerry

When I flew to Calgary with Air Canada at the begining of June I had the hard drive that I had extracted from my work desktop in my brief case. Had no problems at all with security