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Psychologist Consoles Data Loss Victims

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i'm-gonna-come-out-on-the-ledge-with-you-ok dept.

(ok.whatever) writes "A former suicide prevention counselor is employed full-time by a data recovery firm to console its callers. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: 'When the company receives a call from someone who's clearly lost it -- which can happen several times an hour -- Chessin comes on the line to help the caller rediscover their happy place.' Good grief!"

3 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. It does hurt! by Nazmun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just a year ago, i transferred all of my important data to a new IBM HD. I was pressed for space at the time so i deleted my old copies in the older. Within 2 months that hard drive died and took all of my precious data with it.

    5 years of my life, all GONE! It was quite depressing really. Since then i have vowed to never buy a IBM hd or any IBM products ever again (not because they'll fail again, but just because they killed my data!!!)

    --
    Hmmm... Pie...
  2. Sometimes, if you wait long enough... by BlueUnderwear · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ... the hard drive just magically comes back to life.

    Last year, bought a Seagate drive (yes I know....), copied all my stuff to the new drive, and reclaimed the old one for other stuff. And indeed, 3 month after having it, my brand new Seagate died on me. Of course I had no backup (yes I know...). I was shattered.

    Tried contacting data recovery services. However, not only were they rather expensive, but also they did not guarantee confidentiality (in their customer agreement, they reserved themselves the right to make "good" use of the data if they stumbled across sth interesing...). Well, there were some pretty personal data on the disk (in 12 years, you do accumulate stuff), so this did make me somewhat uneasy.

    Finally, a friend of mine told me that just letting the drive rest for a couple of week may bring it back. So, I just put it away, waited 4 weeks, reconnected it, and presto! everything was back! Sometimes lady luck is your friend! Of course, first thing I did was copy everything over to my new brand new raid array of Maxtors: You never know when it will fail again.

    --
    Say no to software patents.
  3. Get a suicidal mind off the phone in less than hal by BlueUnderwear · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Also bear in mind that, according to the article, the "candidates" usually don't call back, for one reason or another. Which means that the counseling hotline doesn't actually know whether they were successful or not...

    --
    Say no to software patents.