Ontrack Data Recovery: A Firsthand Experience with Data Loss

I’m feeling a little nostalgic today, so thought I’d share a little incident from the past. As I've expressed in prior blog postings, one of the biggest challenges Ontrack has is successfully communicating the risks of data loss to customers whom have never experienced it. There are multiple reasons why data loss can be a confusing subject, but I believe confidence and confusion are the main ones. Confidence is the idea that data loss can “never happen to me” because we invest in technology and planning to prevent data loss in the first place. Confusion stems from the term “Data Recovery” itself, as many folks like to think of it as yet another term for backup. I've been to quite a few conferences during my tenure at Ontrack, so I decided to do something a little more drastic during last year’s Flash Memory Summit 2012. I decided to crash my own computer!

Nothing quite beats the dramatic effect of a data recovery company experiencing a computer crash in the middle of one of the biggest tech conferences. Putting it together didn't require much skill and all I really did was  introduce a few blank screens, the dreaded blue screen of death, and some acting skills. In the end my intent wasn't to fool anyone, but to make a strong statement about what data loss is. It’s not something you plan or budget for, nor can you predict when data loss will strike. And that’s the point… Check out the video below (specifically at 2 minute 45 seconds) to see me pull this off.