Travel Technology - Travelling with external HD - how not to lose data?

Hi there -

I'm moving cross-country, and made a concerted effort not to ship any technological bits with the moving country.

As such, I'm flying (domestically in Canada) with my external HD, and I'm unsure as to whether I should pack it in carryon, or put it under the plane.

I've got data on there I'd prefer not to lose, and I'm doing my best to carry two copies of the data (one on my laptop, the other on the disc), but I don't have enough laptop HD storage for all of it.

As such, should I worry about baggage scanners wiping my drives? Should I be paranoid enough to ask for a manual search of my external hard drive through security?

Thanks for your help!

Rule number one for me is to NEVER check anything you can't afford to lose or to not see again. I'd not worry about them X-Raying it but I would definitely NOT check it.

In carry on I wouldn't be all that concerned. As checked baggage, if they are using the scanners, I would be concerned. I say do it as carry on.

I would also burn a complete set of data to CD or DVD or something just in case, that's good advice even if you never travel with the drive.

I don't believe, at least here in the United States, they would let it go through a manual scan.

...I'm unsure as to whether I should pack it in carryon, or put it under the plane.


Simple. DO NOT CHECK IT!


As such, should I worry about baggage scanners wiping my drives?


Pople go through security with their laptops all the time, myself included.


Should I be paranoid enough to ask for a manual search of my external hard drive through security?


Are you flying el al or something? :D Even after 9/11, I've never had security search my hard drive, and I fly almost every week.

Thanks for all the posts. Carry-on it is. :D

Just make sure your drive doesn't get "disrupted":

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=368482

Back-ups are always a good idea.