hi all, is there any way of rescuing the data i saved on a portable HD if it has been in contact with a fairy strong magnet? im asking as i have an external hitatchi 40gb ata/ide drive in a metal enclosure which i recently laid a magnet on top of for a few seconds, now my computer doesnt recognize it fully and when i try to explore the drive it comes up something about the device having an I/0 device error or sumfin, there is also no sound from it when i plug it in and the disk rattles when i shake it lightly, is this fault repairable? or have i just lost 7 years worth of collected media?

Hi and welcome to D-A-L

hard drives store data magnetically so bringing it in contact with a magnet will not do it any good at all, you may have corrupted all you data