Friday
Aug242012
What was your greatest tech disaster?
Friday, August 24, 2012 at 3:00AM A great question from Donald today. What was your greatest tech disaster? For example - flashed a ROM and bricked a phone, or attempted to upgrade a computer and trashed it or somthing else?
Reader Comments (7)
Well, to answer my own question, it happened about 6 months ago when I totally trashed the first NAS I bought. Telling the whole story would run several pages as it was just one stupidity after another. (And the bad thing is I KNEW I was being stupid). I'll spare you the gory details but the end result was a totally trashed NAS that I had to throw away. The worst part - I'd only had it a week but decided to try and repair myself instead of sending in for warranty service. This from a guy who's been a certified network engineer, certified PC technician and software analyst for 30 years and KNOWS better.
Fortunately my current NAS has been working flawlessly for the 5 months I've owned it, but you can be sure if I have any problems with it I will send in for warranty service like a good boy!
Back in around 2000, I think, I had to moves all our family files/documents from a Win98 machine to a new XP PC. Hadn't done my homework on how best to back-up and restore (did not have an external hard drive) and managed to lose about 4 years of outlook data! I, in general, know my DIY limits and don't do anything more complicated than flashing ROMs ;-)
A couple of weeks back, I dropped a robotic lawnmower onto a solid floor whilst trying to disassemble it to fix a faulty IR sensor, which caught the lead of the soldering iron and dragged the heated iron onto my foot. I moved enough to avoid being burned too much, and running foot under tap for a while stopped any damage, but I still haven't managed to fix the fall damage on the robot.
Again, not a huge issue, but a friend asked me to fix his faulty SIP-based phone network. I couldn't really afford the time to travel, so logged in remotely, fixed the problem and rebooted the box... which did not come back up, leaving their entire phone network down. I ended up traveling and fixing it on site; somehow /etc/network/interfaces referred to the wrong adapter, meaning, on reboot, it had no connection. That was easily fixed, although goodness knows how it got in that state. I tinkered a little longer with the asterisk configuration too, and fixed a couple of other glitches too, so it was not too bad overall — and I got a curry out of it :)
A long time ago I had had a few drinks. Came home. Put smartphone on fireplace shelf.
Next day, couldn't find phone.
Then it dawned on me. I had wobbled, missed fireplace shelf, and threw phone into open real fire.
Sadly, the phone was rather a bit too crispy to use again.
The bang of the exploding battery didn't wake you?!
Not after the amount I had drunk. I have even slept through a bomb.
Family and friends all had heard it. I was living 500 yards away from blast. Flats either side got damaged. But I slept in unaware of my house phone ringing frantically checking I was ok.
This was the bomb the IRA exploded at Staples Corner, and London.
Ironically I slept in longer as there was no noise from the main road!
I always have issues with PC's that I buy - without fail. Have tried different models and brands but am yet to buy a PC that I haven't had to return at least twice - and that extends to laptops too.
Am starting to think that I might just build my own one next time - might be more expensive but at least it will work properly.
Surprising phones I have never had an issue with and neither have I had a problem with my tablet.
Just down my first firmware upgrade with my S3 (really annoying that their is no OTA update - TMobile seems to have disabled it) using Kies - even though slow compared to OTA all done without issues.