2011 Top 10 Data Disasters

Roll over and click each number to read the disaster stories!

Top 10 Data Disasters Challenge Winner: Karlo Arozqueta

His Data Disaster:
While my day job of IT security keeps me busy, I also offer freelance commercial support for a few clients. A few years ago, a client who owned a tax preparation company called me to diagnose why its backups were no longer working. I had previously set them up with a 500 GB external drive that their main server (with all historical customer tax data) was using for weekly and monthly backups. I arrived on-site to find that the external drive was indeed not powering up, so I took it back to my workshop and opened up the drive. It was at this point that a fistful of roach carcasses poured out onto my workbench; there were dead roaches all over the inside of the case! It appeared that the roaches had fried the power supply and circuit board as the drive would not turn on, even after being plugged directly into a computer. After assessing the damage, I decided to take pictures of the damaged drive because I knew the client would have trouble believing me. Afterwards, I phoned the client and informed them of the issue, but was unable to determine a cause as the rest of the office and IT equipment were immaculate.

Because this was the backup drive, the bulk of the data was safe and secure on the server, but the client was now willing to invest in the move to an online cloud-based backup solution. It is always good when a near-tragedy can open the eyes of a client to the potential financial loss that a drive can cause to a business. I have since been on many a support calls but have never dealt with an issue like this, and hope to never again. Dead roaches really creep me out!