Posted on 10/13/2009 1:49:30 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
A server meltdown over the weekend wiped out the master copies of personal data -- including address books, calendars, to-do lists and photos -- accumulated by users of T-Mobile's formerly popular Sidekick smartphone.
This computing calamity allows Sidekick owners only a faint hope of backing up the information currently on their devices, and none of recovering anything they'd trusted to online storage. And it leaves T-Mobile and the operator of the Sidekick's data service, a Microsoft subsidiary formerly known as Danger Inc. -- oh, the irony! -- with serious explaining to do.
A statement on T-Mobile's site phrased things a little more bluntly than the average exercise in corporate contrition: "we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device -- such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos -- that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."
The statement went on to instruct Sidekick users with data surviving on their phones to avoid "removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost." (An update Monday night expressed a little more optimism: "Recent efforts indicate the prospects of recovering some lost content may now be possible.") A frequently-asked-questions file contains a handful of suggestions, such as copying a Sidekick's contacts list to its SIM card, while a third-party site outlines a laborious process by which you can e-mail your contacts list and notes to your computer, one person and one file at a time.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
T-Mobile will have hell to pay for this. I think that they better come off with a miracle and find customers lost data. Thank God I am not with them.
Luuucy!!! You gots some splainin’ to dooooooo.....
Tons of splainin to dooooooooo
Heard on the radio news this morning that they were going to send the people who lost all their data twenty bucks.
Man, I would be pissed, but I know that one day the very same thing may happen to my iPhone.
That would be far more difficult as your iPhone’s data is stored on your computer multiple times. And you back up your computer frequently... right?
Right?
Of course.
oops
Well, then you’re smarter than Microsoft, which had no backups.
T-Mobile can pound sand. My son got a phone and contract from them about 5 years ago. The phone stopped working after three weeks. They replaced the phone then tried to charge him for it on the next bill. The bill also had about $150 of phone charges on it. I told the company we would pay the charges but not for the phone since we were told it was a free replacement. They said they would not take partial payment. We still get occasional calls from collection agencies about this bill, usually offering a 50% reduction in the bill. Every time, I tell them we will pay for the phone charges, but not the phone (which is actually less than 50% of the bill), but they have to take the mark off his credit report. They refuse to do that so I just tell them they ain’t getting anything then and just laugh at them.
Maybe I missed something, but how can you can possibly lose ALL the data ... unless someone ran through the data center with a giant electromagnet ... and even then, weren’t there occasional backups to optical? Off-site?
They do know it’s not literally a cloud that stores data, right?
:)
In this day and age, it is unthinkable to not have redundant back ups.
This is and epic fail, just like 0bama’s bid for the Olympics.
From another list I'm on:
They were doing an upgrade on their Hitachi SAN. In preparation for this upgrade, they were performing a backup, but it was 2 days into a 6 day backup procedure (it's a *lot* of data). Someone from MS (Roz Ho, http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/rozho/) told them to stop the backup procedure and proceed with the upgrade after assurances from Hitachi that a backup wasn't necessary. This was done against the objections of Danger engineers.Now, they had a backup from a couple of months ago, but they only had the SAN space for a single backup. Because they started a new backup, they had to remove the old one. If they hadn't done a backup at all, they'd still have the previous backup to fall back on.
Anyway, after the SAN upgrade, disks started "disappearing". Logically, Oracle freaked out and started trying to recover, which just made the damage worse. I'm a little fuzzy on the details here, however.
At this point, they're considering it a lost cause.
Aren't these people supposed to be among the best in the business? And they OK major upgrades without backing up properly?
And they all want users to migrate to the cloud???
You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? It's been my experience that they are no better than anyone else. I'd have fought tooth and nail to make that backup--especially since I'd have already erased the previous one.
What's another four days, anyway?
Exactly.
BREAKING NEWS: Meet the new 0bamacare IT team....
No backups?
Folks, don’t trust anyone else to keep your data. It’s YOUR responsibility
Hi! I’m from Microsoft and I’m here to help you.
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