Can Screwdrivers With Magnetic Tips Cause Damage To Electronics?

While it is convenient to pick screws with magnetized tips I wonder if the magnetism can cause any damage to electronics?

If you're thinking that magnetic screwdrivers might corrupt data on hard disks, my experience is that it doesn't happen. I've used my magnetic screwdriver to drive screws into the holes on hard drives, and nothing bad has ever happe$#J@R(F$*U%&$#(J

You could make an old time crt monitor display funny colors, not sure about 3.5" and 5" floppies.

But unless your screwdriver is with pretty big neodymium magnet head, you are highly unlikely to damage anything. Most electronic components are not ferromagnetic and inducing strong current inside them is hard to do. You will even have hard time damaging the data on a hard drive.

Magnetic tips don't do damage unless there is power, at worst, they can change stored data.

A hard drive is sealed of by a metal case around it, and the distance to the internal components is big. So, it won't be affected. However, watch out with memory cards and ROM memory like the BIOS, although I would believe they are protected against static electricity there might still exist a small risk...

These are simple physics, the magnetic tip has a magnetic field which will induce ferromagnetic wave into the conductive materials around it. This induced power will be rather small, but depending on the amount of magnetic force the magnetic tip has it might be enough to change some bits when you get close enough to the magnetic parts of not properly shielded storage media...

It’s unlikely that the magnet in your screwdriver is powerful enough. See this question on specifics about what can be harmed.

Let's put it this way: the risk is vastly less than the risk for causing damage if you lose or scratch a screw across a board.