Not as rare as your average IT Admin would like to think. We’ve all been there at some point. Accidentally deleting the demo accounts system (it was the live system, but with a backup taken minutes before). Initialising the incorrect disk. Fortunately, not a single error in the past 25 years.
Most user errors can be reversed. However, they remain a popular reason for many recoveries we see – especially with RAID arrays and NAS boxes, where we have come across users who, on being unable to mount a volume or share on a NAS device have decided that formatting the unit will solve their problems. Or, when a RAID array would not mount one user decided that reinitialising the array would solve their problems. Or how about the user who, in their infinite wisdom, decided to test the ruggedness of their new RAID 5 NAS device by pulling a drive (which he somehow manage to short, destroying the PCB) – only to find their RAID 5 had incorrectly been configured and delivered as a striped array – RAID 0?
The list goes on. Users will continue to damage and destroy data; it’s human nature to be inquisitive. But the next time you’re interested in what would happen if you tried something extreme on a data storage system, best give it a break and contact a professional provider.
