Over the past year, the most common reasons for data loss we encountered are the following, in no particular order:

  1. Dropped Hard Drive
  2. Head Failure
  3. Corrupt Firmware
  4. Overwritten Data
  5. Flood and Fire
  6. Spilled Liquid / Dropped in Water
  7. Stuck Read/Write Heads
  8. Multiple Drive Failure in RAID Array
  9. Damaged PCB
  10. Seized Spindle

As we enter into 2014, let this be a reminder to verify that your backup is working.  If you don’t have a backup routine in place, it is a good time to start.