Bringing External Hard Drive Into Thailand

[chriswatson]

Hi,

I'm likely to be emigrating to Thailand and want to bring an external 2TB hard drive for my laptop with me. It's got all my personal work stuff and an enormous amount of music files from my own collection (i.e. not illegally downloaded). I don't really want to put it through the scanner with the hand luggage as it may corrupt the files within it. Should I put it through with the luggage or can one ask both UK and Thai customs to not scan it and let them check there's nothing illegal/obscene on the drive manually?

Presumably someone has had this issue before already? Maybe the scanner doesn't corrupt the content of the drive anyway? Anyone know the proper procedure or had a similar situation?

Cheers

[Crossy]

I've never ever had data on a hard drive corrupted by airport scanners, and I fly regularly with laptops and external drives, don't worry. Do however ensure you have a backup of your data somewhere that's not flying

[chriswatson]

Yeh, might have been a stupid question (I've not had anything corrupted before on my work travels either, but there's always a first time), and I've never brought a 2TB hard drive with me and didn't know if, in addition to the finite risk of the data corrupting, whether Thailand may have some specific laws, procedures or taxes or something! I should have worded my question better...

Thanks for the answer though! Will definitely keep a data back up

Edited September 23, 2009 by chriswatson

[adammike]

Its sticking all your eggs in a one basket problem

Know more than a few who have lost all there holiday photos "all my snaps are on a 8gb card" or were until the phone was nicked.

You can put music on 16gb micro sd cards damm they are tiny.

250gb external hard drives can be the size of an Iphone.

And nothing has ever been corrupted by a scanner at an airport.

[nowork114]

If you will be willing to completely disassemble the HDD in front of the customs I think they will let you pass Otherwise they will think you try to smuggle in / out something ...

[phibunmike]

I have carried several external drives into Thailand, never had problems. The scanners do not affect them - after all, your laptop always gets scanned, too....

But I always make a backup before I travel - more to prtect against loss, theft or dropping than anything else.

I also don't think customs have any interest in a single drive in your luggage.

Cheers,

Mike

[britmaveric]

Xray machines have no affect on Hard Drives.

[cyb]

Xray machines have no affect on Hard Drives.

Just make sure it's well packed and protected from shock and you should be fine.

Keep it in your hand luggage though.

Edited September 24, 2009 by cyb

[Bjorn]

Don't worry. I travel frequently with my laptop and two external HD. Never a problem with the scanners. No data lost. The staff never cares about my external HD, no questions asked at any airport.

[jerrymartin]

Dont make a fuss with external hardrives with security or customs or they will examine really closely for porn, paedo,terrorist files as they will be suspicious . just let it go through the process.