It Could Happen To You

Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM

Kroll Ontrack, a provider of data recovery products and services, celebrates the end of each year with a list of the top 10 data loss disasters and craziest recovery requests. Taken from the results of a global Kroll Ontrack expert poll, the following stories top the list — and end with a successful data recovery using Kroll's services.

10
ALL WASHED UP — A woman called the engineers at Kroll Ontrack complaining she had “washed all her data away.” Her USB stick had gone through a cycle in her washing machine and, unsurprisingly, she couldn't retrieve any data from it.

9
DOTING DAD — Rushing home from work to feed his baby daughter, an overzealous father forgot about the USB stick in his top pocket. As he leaned over the highchair, the device fell in a dish of sticky apple puree.

8
TAKING THE BAIT — A fisherman took his laptop out on his rowboat to play video games while waiting for a bite. As he stood up, both he and the laptop went overboard, taking his data to the bottom of the lake.

7
PANICKED PHOTOGRAPHER — A wedding photographer faced the potential wrath of a new bride after he discovered he had overwritten her photos with those from another event. Two days before the couple returned from their honeymoon, he called Kroll Ontrack for help. The bride was none the wiser.

6
ACID TRIP — A scientist spilled acid on an external hard drive during an experiment. Thinking all the data had been burned, he called in the experts who were able to successfully recover the data on the drive.

5
BUSINESS BRAWL — In the heat of an argument in Australia, a businessman threw a USB stick at his partner. Containing valuable company plans, the stick ended up in several pieces on the floor. Luckily, both the plans and the business relationship were salvaged.

4
INDISCRIMINATE INFERNO — A fire destroyed the majority of the contents of an office, leaving only a few CDs, which had melted to the insides of their cases — a unique job for the engineers.

3
QUEST FOR A QUIET LIFE — A British scientist was fed up with his hard drive squeaking, so he drilled a hole through the casing and poured oil into the mechanics. The squeaking stopped, and so did the hard drive.

2
PARACHUTE MISHAP — In an effort to test the functionality of a parachute, a camera (acting as the cargo) was dropped from a plane. Unfortunately, the parachute failed its test, and the fragile cargo shattered into several pieces. With the help of Kroll Ontrack, the camera's memory stick was reassembled, and the video of the parachute's demise was recovered.

1
ANT INVASION — Discovering that ants had taken up residence in his external hard drive, a photographer in Thailand took the cover off and sprayed the interior with insect repellent. It killed the ants and the data, until Kroll Ontrack's engineers took charge.

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