Top 10 Data Disasters of 2008

Kingdom Data Recovery have compiled a list of the strangest and most extreme data loss cases from the past year.

10. All at Sea - An around-the-world sailing jaunt finished severely when the traveller's boat overturned on the final day of her holiday with a laptop on board. Thankfully, the engineers were able to recover one hundred percent of the data, which referenced her once-in-a-lifetime experience.

9. All Cooped Up - When Hurricane Katrina hit the US in 2005, a newlywed couple caught in the hurricane guessed both their engagement and wedding photographs would never be retrieved. Their concerns worsened when a local data recovery provider deemed the drive "rusted beyond repair". Two and half years later, the duo dug out the soggy drive from their cellar and gave data recovery one more a try. The attempt proved worthwhile since all of the engagement and wedding images were retrieved.

8. Gone Fishing - A lawyer on holiday thought she could go fishing with her father and do some business simultaneously. Infuriated that she had brought a laptop into the fishing boat, her father’s friend tossed the laptop bag (holding the laptop and backup media) overboard.

The fully clothed attorney jumped in after the laptop. She was relieved when her important business and tax info was recovered by skilled data recovery engineers.

7. That’s a Wrap - An independent movie maker was laying the final touches to his current Western using his MacBook Pro when it began making funny noises and crashed. Without a backup copy, he was concerned his year of hard work would go to waste. Using data recovery services, the film was retrieved, completed and sold. It is now for sale internationally on DVD.

6. Stolen Goods - A laptop was taken from a family house along with a handbag, car keys and the family car. The car was recovered the next day by the riverbank, but with no sign of the laptop or bag.

Days later, a Good Samaritan came to the burgled house with a dripping-wet laptop case, and the laptop inside. His son had discovered it washed out on the beach. How was the Good Samaritan able to ascertain the owner?

The thief had stuffed the purse into the laptop bag before casting it off into the river. Data recovery engineers regained the data.

5. Dog Gone Wild - A disorderly dog bumped a portable USB drive off a coffee table, rendering it unreadable by the family’s computer. At stake were 5 years of family photographs. Thankfully all were recovered by Data Recovery experts.

4. Baby Teeth - Data Recovery experts got an SD card from a digital camera with tons of teeth marks on it. The client suggested a ‘feral animal’ had got hold of it and chewed it. The feral animal he was pertaining to was his 2-year-old boy. A full retrieval was reached.

3. Sucked Up - An everyday house housecleaning went askew when a flash drive was sucked-up along with food crumbs by a vacuum cleaner. It was so strong that tracks from the drive were forced from the circuit board and the connector was pulled loose. However, the data was recovered.

2. It’s a Jungle Out There - A wildlife research institute project came to an abrupt stop when one of the flash tracking chips from a Florida panther’s collar was physically broken in the wild. The crucial panther conservation data was successfully reclaimed.

And lastly, the number 1 most extraordinary data disaster of 2008…

1. Roast Laptop - A gentleman put his laptop into the oven, before going on vacation, in order to protect it from burglars if the house was perchance broken into.

His wife came home and used the oven to cook a roast chicken before his return.

The oven roasted not only the chicken, but the laptop drive too. In spite of this, the man’s data was retrieved using proprietary methods by data recovery engineers.