Letter: Letters : Magnetic moggies

From Andrew Laing

Overijse, Belgium

I wish to draw your attention to a previously unrecognised risk to data
stored on magnetic media in a domestic environment (Feedback, 5 April).

We are a typical family—two parents, two late-teenage children, four
oldish computers and two cats. The cats are dominant in the hierarchy; they have
all the luxuries—including a third-generation technology cat flap (bought
from Harrods) which opens as they approach but which slams in the face of the
local toms. The computers are at the bottom—but any computer failure sends
the stress levels in the rest of us soaring, as we curse and swear on a stack of
Microsoft manuals that we will make full backups every week.

Early in March, on the same day, two discs became unreadable on separate
machines—one an ordinary floppy and the other a 100 megabyte Zip Drive
disc full of irreplaceable files. We held our breath as Norton Utilities pieced
the files back together, and went on a witch-hunt for possible causes —low
voltage desk lights, cordless phone, junk software—which were all put away
or deleted.

The next week the same thing happened again. Paranoia ruled—what stupid
games had our son been playing? Had he taken the discs to school?

Then, over dinner, Ruth, our daughter, said: “I saw the magnet on Titi’s (the
older cat’s) collar sticking to the metal filing cabinet as she climbed up to
the desk next to the computer.”

We had a delightful image of the small and powerful magnet which operates the
reed switch in the cat flap waving gently over the discs on the desk as she
purred her way to sleep in the warmth. So: magnetic moggies cause dodgy discs.
You have been warned.