[smokingfrog]

Do you have a strange, humorous, or fateful story about a computer failure or data loss? Post them here.

[djf]

Some company in eastern Washington state makes laptops for like FBI and Treasury.

Showed a demo of a fellow. He turns it on, then holds it out at arms length.
Then drops it.

It has built in power down in case of shock, so he picks it up and hits the power button. Starts right up. No problems at all.

[raybbr]

ping

[goldstategop]

I have Rollback RX installed on my computer. A power outage hosed most of my windows snapshots. Fortunately, I was able to boot back with the original. Much better than Windows Restore.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[ShadowAce]

[Still Thinking]

Many of us have suffered a data-destroying computer crash. But some stories are better than others. Josh Diulio, a marketing exec from Monroe, Mich., left his HP laptop sitting on a ledge on the balcony of his apartment building while he ran inside to get a drink. When he came back a crow was perched on the open laptop. The crow, startled by Diulio, leaped up and away, tipping the laptop just enough that it fell seven stories to the street below—where, just for good luck, it was run over by passing cars.

This sounds more like something that would happen in a movie than real life. OTOH, what kind of retard sets a device containing irreplaceable data on a 7th floor balcony ledge?

[Still Thinking]

	Online	External drive/Home server
Better Cost		x
Less Potential for data being used against your interests		x
Less potential for having your data held hostage		x
Less potential for temporary loss of access to data		x

Yep, can't imagine why we aren't ALL backing up online!

[JoeProBono]

[Grizzled Bear]

A computer simulation of a Moose bit my sister.

[Toki]

My computer died two days ago. Two and half years, and it deservers all the rest it can get.. like the other five or six computers I was able to take down in my odd twenty years with computers (well... actually seven or eight, but those were just mother boards.) One such story involves a kid (me) with an army man above my computer (which was about 8 feet up through a hole in the wall) and I was dropping him down, tried to get him up(first by long pole, and then I went down to get him I think), ended up pressing the reset button while doing so, and poof, there went the computer. This was about what happened to every computer in my childhood (I took out three computers in nine years) before. I am now forbidden to touch my Dad’s computers due to it.

One night a while ago, I had two mother boards that I was working with, and my computer. I managed to fry one (smoke came out of it due to mismatching the power box and the mother board), the other just died (would not work) and the last one (the computer that died two days ago), had it’s innards sticking out from a break on the part connecting the two pieces a wire had been broken, I touched it while it was on and there were pretty sparks...

and my finger was now burn somewhat through and black.

So this is why this computer (which is now probably famous at every Apple certified repair place in GA) which has had the screen cracked from the body three separate times, (one time for three months it was held together by nothing but duct tape and sheer will) and has other maladies (burns, restarting every time it moved, and it’s usual load of being used every second of the day that I was awake). My friends are even buying Mac’s on the premise it’s survived me this long, it’s survive them forever.

And the funny part is? I want to be a web designer.

[Nateman]

At most I’d end up losing six months worth of data. That’s because as a Linux user I get a brand new version every six months which I then install cleanly after backing up all my data.

[reagan_fanatic]

Keeping your computer's insides clean is an oft-overlooked thing for many people.

I do computer repair as a 2nd job. About 2 months ago, I got one in from a fella who complained that it wouldn't come on anymore. When I opened up the case, there was so much dust clogging the innards I couldn't even see the parts anymore - just vague lumps where the hard drive and motherboard should have been. The power supply was completely caked and was fried from overheating.

Take a few minutes once a month or so, remove the case and blow it out with some canned air. It will extend the life of your computer considerably.

[Fire_on_High]

Bleh, lost 10 years worth of games and music that had been painstakingly moved from drive to drive when a partition apparently corrupted early in the day unnoticed, and then a power failure finished the job. Had I see the logs or the drive in time, chkdsk could’ve saved the day...as it is, ended up with several hours of digging up older drives to recover most of it.

[JerseyHighlander]

My first crappy apartment in college, I had set up my desk and desktop unknowingly placed under the main inflow hot water pipe for the apartment above mine. I was sitting there reading FreeRepublic, and felt a drop of water hit my hand. A moment later the drywall of the ceiling burst open as about 5 gallons of pooled water came crashing down onto my desktop and the constant stream started flooding in.

To put it in historic perspective, once I got up and running again I went out and bought the expensive 100MB zipdrive and disks to save my important documents.

[Tainan]

Gee...and then there is me....I ordered an Ubuntu disk to install the 'fabled Linus' OS in a partition to check it out...ZAP!...screwed the pooch royally with that crapola. And of course, the Linux acolytes never get around to telling ya how hard it is to remove it from your system. "Unistall" prog?..."Hey...why? You'll never need it!"

Ubuntu...its worth everything you pay for it!.

And yes, I know, some people swear by it. I'll just be one who swears at it.

[webschooner]

I’ve had a few computer crashes over the years, but no one died, at least in the immediate vicinity, so no, no (apparent) fatalities to report here ...

[grb]

Do not use Carbonite. It is an online backup. I tried it and the blue screen of death started happening. Trying to restore the data was a nightmare. Just an FYI

[Ignatz]

I have the best method in the world for backing up data for disaster recovery. In fact I can restore not just yesterday’s data, but I can restore up to the last time a “Save” came through the I/O stack! In fact, I’ll guarantee your data is safe and can be restored in the event of a catastrophic failure.

[Centurion2000]

Josh Diulio, a marketing exec from Monroe, Mich., left his HP laptop sitting on a ledge on the balcony of his apartment building while he ran inside to get a drink.

In other words, he was being an IDIOT.