In light of our recent conversations about hard drives, you might find
this article interesting.

Jerry

By Dan Ilett, Silicon.com, News.com
Posted on ZDNet News: Jul 22, 2008 6:38:48 AM

Deaths at the hands of bananas, smelly socks and WD-40 are some of the
unusual fates to have befallen innocent hard drives, according to a
data recovery company that has released a list of the most remarkable
cases of data loss witnessed this year.

One customer left a banana on top of his hard drive, which then rotted
and seeped through into the device. The circuits were ruined and the
drive failed to work.
The banana was also ruined.

Get even. Here's Silicon.com gallery on how to destroy a hard drive.

Another customer, failing to read the warning signs, managed to
reformat his hard drive not once, not twice, but ten times before he
realized there was some valuable information he needed. Another
customer decided his broken hard drive could be packaged and sent to
the company in a pair of dirty socks. The data recovery company--
OnTrack--said the smelly clothing failed to provide the necessary
protection during shipping, which resulted in more damage to the drive.

British comedian Dom Joly, presenter of Trigger Happy TV, thought the
joke was on him when he dropped his laptop, damaging a hard drive
containing 5,000 photos, 6,000 songs, a book he was writing and all of
his newspaper columns.

And a university professor appeared not-so-clever when he heard a
squeaking noise from the drive of his new desktop and decided to open
the case and spray in some WD-40. Although successful in stopping the
drive from squeaking, this was largely because he had also stopped the
drive from working.

Employees of a global telecommunications company had a tall tale to
tell their bosses after they dropped a laptop computer while working
from a helicopter in Monaco.

Also, OnTrack says it happens every year, but people continue to leave
computers and hard drives in the path of moving vehicles. This year
alone, the company recovered data from a laptop that was run over by a
people-carrier at the airport, and several external hard drives
stuffed in a backpack that was backed over by a truck.

After returning from the airport from his dream diving holiday in
Barbados, one man discovered he couldn't access any of the snorkeling
photos he took on his new 'waterproof' digital camera. It seems the
camera wasn't as waterproof as advertised.

OnTrack claims it rescued the data in all cases. Jim Reinert, senior
director of software and services for the company, said it pays to
have your damaged hard drive or storage device evaluated because the
chances of recovery are good.

--
This list is a free service of LassoSoft: http://www.LassoSoft.com/
Search the list archives: http://www.ListSearch.com/GoLive/Browse/
Manage your subscription: http://www.ListSearch.com/GoLive/