And you thought you were having a bad day...

[Gerry]

Oops! Techie wipes out $38 billion fund
Keystroke mistake deletes data for Alaska’s oil-funded account

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17702021/

That’s what happened to a computer technician reformatting a disk drive at the Alaska Department of Revenue. While doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account — one of Alaska residents’ biggest perks — and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well.

There was still hope, until the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable.

“Nobody panicked, but we instantly went into planning for the worst-case scenario,” said Permanent Fund Dividend Division Director Amy Skow. The computer foul-up last July would end up costing the department more than $200,000.

Over the next few days, as the department, the division and consultants from Microsoft Corp. and Dell Inc. labored to retrieve the data, it became obvious the worst-case scenario was at hand.

UPDATE...the techie does have a new position...

"...Will that be paper or plastic, maam?"

 

[Focus]

Ouch!

 

[GAMEFINEST]

He wasnt trained yet ..lol

 

[seanboy]

I hope he enjoys working at Taco Bell

 

[JRBHosting]

"Accidentally" reformatted the backup? Just like my computer teacher in 6th grade "accidentally" stole $12,000 from the school because "he thought the paper bag was empty" (true story!).

Jason

 

[Gerry]

I hope he enjoys working at Taco Bell

Taco Bell turned him down...they didn't have pictures on the cash register.

 

[Duckinla]

C'mon, we've all had days like that.
I still remember the day I told my uncle George that I saw a nuke in Iraq. How could I know that it was a Pinata? It certainly looked real.

 

[seanboy]

C'mon, we've all had days like that.
I still remember the day I told my uncle George that I saw a nuke in Iraq. How could I know that it was a Pinata? It certainly looked real.

lol :lol:

 

[namestrands]

They should of contacted me. I have had a 99% success rate of recovering data from Formatted and Damaged Harddrives.

Just done a job for a NY law firm whos client is suing a popular theme park, all the evidence recovered without a single lost byte

 

[BidNo]

They should of contacted me. I have had a 99% success rate of recovering data from Formatted and Damaged Harddrives.

Just done a job for a NY law firm whos client is suing a popular theme park, all the evidence recovered without a single lost byte

Sweet. How do you do it? Build the platters into a new drive?

 

[VirtualT]

companys fault for not having adequate offsite backups. A fire would have done the same thing.

 

[namestrands]

Sweet. How do you do it? Build the platters into a new drive?

I do a lot of forensic computing, so I rent a clean room out at our local university. However if its a case of a format, then the data can be recovered with a few choice tools.

 

[Steen]

companys fault for not having adequate offsite backups. A fire would have done the same thing.

Good point. Unless he reformatted several drives remotely.