Top Ten Data Disasters 2008
In the course of performing more than 50,000 data recovery jobs every year, Ontrack Data Recovery engineers see some bizarre data loss cases reach their labs.
For the fifth straight year, we have compiled a list of the strangest and most extreme data loss cases from the past year.
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10. Overboard - An around-the-world sailing trip ended badly when the traveller's boat capsized on the last day of her trip with a laptop on board. Thankfully, Ontrack Data Recovery engineers were able to recover 100 per cent of the data, which documented her once-in-a-lifetime experience. |
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9. All Cooped Up - When Hurricane Katrina hit the US in 2005, a newlywed couple caught in the hurricane thought both their engagement and wedding photos would never be recovered. Their fears grew worse when a local data recovery provider deemed the drive "corroded beyond repair". Two and half years later, the couple dug up the waterlogged drive from their basement and gave Ontrack Data Recovery a try. The effort proved worthwhile as all of the engagement and wedding pictures were recovered. |
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A lawyer on holiday thought she could fish with her father and do some business at the same time. Furious that she had brought a laptop into the fishing boat, her father’s friend threw the laptop bag (containing the laptop and backup media) overboard. The fully clothed lawyer jumped in after the laptop. She was relieved when her valuable business and tax information was retrieved by Ontrack Data Recovery’s experienced engineers. |
| 7. That’s a Wrap - An independent filmmaker was putting the final touches to his latest Western using his MacBook Pro when it started making odd noises and crashed. Without a backup copy, he worried his year of hard work would go to waste. Using Ontrack Data Recovery services, the film was recovered, completed and sold. It is now available internationally on DVD. |
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6. Stolen Goods - A laptop was stolen from a family house along with a purse, car keys and the family car. The car was found the following day by the riverside, but with no sign of the laptop or handbag. Days later, a Good Samaritan arrived at the burgled home with a dripping-wet laptop bag, and the laptop inside. His children had found it washed up on the beach. How was the Good Samaritan able to find the owner? The thief had stuffed the handbag into the laptop bag before throwing it into the river. Ontrack Data Recovery’s engineers recovered the data. |
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5. Dog Gone Wild - A rowdy dog knocked a portable USB drive off a coffee table, rendering it unreadable by the family’s computer. At stake were five years of family photos. Thankfully all were recovered via Ontrack Data Recovery, a division of Kroll Ontrack. |
| 4. Baby Teeth - Kroll Ontrack received an SD card from a camera with lots of teeth marks on it. The customer indicated a ‘wild animal’ had got hold of it and chewed it. The wild animal he was referring to was his 2-year-old son. A full recovery was achieved. |
| 3. Swept Away - A routine house cleaning went awry when a flash drivewas sucked-up together with food crumbs by a vacuum cleaner. It was so powerful that tracks from the drive were pulled from the circuit board and the connector was torn loose. Nevertheless, the data was retrieved. |
| 2. It’s a Jungle Out There - A wildlife research institute project came to a sudden halt when one of the flash tracking chips from a Florida panther’s collar was physically damaged in the wild. The critical panther preservation data was successfully recovered. |
| And finally, the number one most remarkable data disaster of 2008… |
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A man put his laptop into the kitchen oven, prior to going on holiday, in order to protect it from burglars if the house was by chance broken into. His wife came home and used the oven to cook a roast chicken before his return. The oven cooked not only the chicken, but the laptop drive too. Despite this, the man’s data was recovered using proprietary techniques by Ontrack Data Recovery’s engineers. |
8. Gone Fishing 
1. Roast Laptop 