I can't help with your question CharlesCS.

Dude, you're taking a vacation, leave that stuff at home!  Vacations don't last for ever, the internet will be there when you get back home.  The fact that you ask the questions says something about your life style, take a break from that stuff and enjoy Puerto Rico.  It's a VACATION!

Absolutely correct.

No issue at all and have done it loads of times. Suggest you leave at least one copy at home of your backups...and don't put all your stuff in one bag.

Have a great trip! Enjoy the

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001027.htm

That's one of several articles on the subject Google finds.  Additionally, you can read the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_machine

I only gave it a very quick glance, but since it doesn't sound like X-Ray machines use magnetrons or very strong magnets in their assembly, you're golden.  Remember as well that a myriad number of business travelers fly every day and would be subjecting their laptops and other devices to hundreds more scans than you and yet we don't hear about data loss from them.

You might want to consider getting a TSA approved "Checkpoint Friendly" laptop bag. That way you won't have to take out the laptop and turn it on...you just unzip the bag, open it flat on the conveyer belt, and they can see the laptop and scan it. LINK

No you'll be fine.  I go on trips all the time with my laptop.  Don't have any games on it but there's never been an issue.

Digital camera be just fine.  It's film that gets fucked by X-ray machines.  Electronics don't care about the piddling stuff at security checkpoints.

You need massive radiation to do any thing at all to them.  While running, maybe you could corrupt some information in transit if it's one of the more powerful scanners, but even that is more of a better safe than sorry precaution than a likely problem.  My suspicion is that the radiation emissions would be killing people before they were strong enough to do anything to your computer.  The carry-on baggage checks they do at the checkpoint aren't even powerful enough to fog low speed film on the first pass.  You can't take high speed film through squat though, it works just like visible light, exposing the film inside the case.

If you take it carry-on, you're fine.  The x-ray machines that scan carry-on baggage are not as powerful as those that scan checked baggage.

If you put it in checked, you've turned it into an expensive paperweight.

(I know it murders the hard drive; I'm not sure what else it murders.)

(Personal experience, never again.)

lol. I wonder what would happen if i took my destop!  

Or the TSA could stop being asinine and act like every other developed nation's security checkpoints and LET YOU KEEP THE DAMNED THING IN THE BAG REGARDLESS.

I bet they dropped it,  Hard... with their foot.  Or something.  Physics, I suggest you study it.

It could have been the metal detector, those have been known to produce strong magnetic fields, usually not passing through it, but near the machine.  Still, itd have to be pretty strong.  Another option could be the motors in the conveyor belts.  Just not the xray machine.

Yeah, I wouldn't be repeating the experiment.

The metal detector does not equal the xray machine, and with normal operation (ie passing through the machine not beside it) it wont harm the drives.  Check this out HD-3 if you wanta know what it takes to fully erase a hdd with a magnetic field.  Always safer to carry on your laptop though, no one is gonna take as much care of it as you will.