What are your worst computing mistakes?

[ray_finkle]

On a tequila induced rage, I snapped a $500 RAID card in half because i could not get it configured correctly. There was nothing wrong with the card, just something wrong with me.......

[The Dark Knight]

I once deleted a companies' highly customised Amazon AWS instant! :(

I was helping out a friend finalise the various apps in the instance, we made duplicates of the instance to help narrow down problems and avoid mistakes. Once everything was done, I stopped and deleted the duplicate instances. Thing is, I also ended up deleting the primary instance! They had to again call in the developers, and redo everything, which took weeks.

Although, it was partly their fault as well, because they did not backup the data on S3 or anywhere else. Needless to say, they now take backups very seriously! :)

[Joseph B]

Well, the only really hardware related thing i've done was ruining a perfectly good 2600+ (brand new at the time) with a really risky overclock. It still works to this day, it just runs nearly 20c warmer than it should, and is prone to heat related BSoDs.

But i've fragged an install or two of XP by resource hacking and modifying system files and trying to make them prettier.

[+John Teacake MVC]

Taken the internet down for an entire country that's quite big

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Using MS-DOS 6.2 DriveSpace! It borked my entire computer!

Ah yes, I too made that mistake. Fun times. Other mistakes:

Built an (at the time) top of the line Athlon PC from parts with a friend. Managed to hit the die while mounting the CPU cooler. 600 Deutsche Mark down the drain.

Formatted the media storage drive while re-installing Windows.

Relied on an IBM DeskStar as storage drive.

[Jonny Wright]

Switched voltage switch on PSU while PC was running.

[IntegralDerivative]

Well, When I was 3 years old(In 2003-2004, I believe) I was playing with Dad's IBM Windows 97 computer(laptop), then I was playing with MS Word, long-pressing the letter "a" creating this:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.......

Over 5 pages of it, Then in late 2004, the computer was officially broken.

[Phouchg]

Giving a few orders of magnitude less than average rat's ass, even after salary adjustment. It makes room for many small mistakes and general inefficiency.

Can't remember anything major going down, though. I leave that to other people.

[drazen11]

full HDD format :/ :hmmm:

and GPU eletric discharge burn... idiot!

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

I used to build computers for a etailer called Aria Technology, a suppose a lot of people in the UK would recognise the name. Anyway, one day I built about 10 or so budget PC's - the components were all the cheapest they had. I built them all, put them all in a line, and switched them all on.

All was well. Well, for a little while. One of the PSU's went with a massive flash and a bang, and it took out the power to the floor I was on, and probably every other floor too. I still blame the cheapness of the components for the fault, but they wanted me to build so many systems in such a short space of time I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something along the line.

That's about the worst mistake I've made. .. Working for Aria. *laughs*

[+virtorio MVC]

One word (sort of) and a number: DriveSpace 3

[eder00]

when i was a kid and learning how to fix PC I connected a HD with the PC turn on and burn the drive.

[BigDavy]

In no particular order...

• Purchasing Windows ME
  
• Purchasing Windows Vista
  
• Purchasing an HD-DVD optical drive and investing in a sizeable batch of HD-DVD movies
  

[Detection]

when i was a kid and learning how to fix PC I connected a HD with the PC turn on and burn the drive.

Yep, done that too, gives you a fright eh :p

[dragon2611]

I used to build computers for a etailer called Aria Technology, a suppose a lot of people in the UK would recognise the name. Anyway, one day I built about 10 or so budget PC's - the components were all the cheapest they had. I built them all, put them all in a line, and switched them all on.

All was well. Well, for a little while. One of the PSU's went with a massive flash and a bang, and it took out the power to the floor I was on, and probably every other floor too. I still blame the cheapness of the components for the fault, but they wanted me to build so many systems in such a short space of time I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something along the line.

That's about the worst mistake I've made. .. Working for Aria. *laughs*

I made the mistake of buying RAM from them then had to RMA it when it was faulty.

I Think I could write a book of the excuses they made for not replacing it,

It varied from Yes we've received it but our systems were being upgraded so we can't test, to Oh the replacement got lost in the post, to Oh we sent a 2nd replacement you're lying now.

Needless to say i've never bought anything from them since and that was probably well over 5 years ago now.

I can think of a few other mistakes

run the command rm -rfv * then relised I wasn't in the directory I thought I was in....

Also deleted a folder of what I thought were symlinks and actually hardlinks to various system binaries.

Formatted the wrong drive on my home pc (Compounded by I had 2 the same and had previsouly been cleaning the dust out of the pc, must have swapped the sata cables when doing so)

Just yesterday I Misset the maximum Post size in php.ini to be in MB when the correct syntax is M if you want it in megabytes, that broke a few peoples websites as php ingored the MB and set it in bytes instead.

[Detection]

I made the mistake of buying RAM from them then had to RMA it when it was faulty.

I Think I could write a book of the excuses they made for not replacing it,

It varied from Yes we've received it but our systems were being upgraded so we can't test, to Oh the replacement got lost in the post, to Oh we sent a 2nd replacement you're lying now.

Needless to say i've never bought anything from them since and that was probably well over 5 years ago now.

I can think of a few other mistakes

run the command rm -rfv * then relised I wasn't in the directory I thought I was in....

Also deleted a folder of what I thought were symlinks and actually hardlinks to various system binaries.

Formatted the wrong drive on my home pc (Compounded by I had 2 the same and had previsouly been cleaning the dust out of the pc, must have swapped the sata cables when doing so)

Just yesterday I Misset the maximum Post size in php.ini to be in MB when the correct syntax is M if you want it in megabytes, that broke a few peoples websites as php ingored the MB and set it in bytes instead.

Maybe you should try your hand at something other than computers :p

[-T- Member]

Attempting to install OSX on a very temperamental MSI motherboard, messed up MBR on one of my hard drives. During the recovery process with some data recovery software, accidently set source and output as the same drive. Killed about 10gig of photos that day much to my everlasting regret

I used to build computers for a etailer called Aria Technology, a suppose a lot of people in the UK would recognise the name. Anyway, one day I built about 10 or so budget PC's - the components were all the cheapest they had. I built them all, put them all in a line, and switched them all on.

All was well. Well, for a little while. One of the PSU's went with a massive flash and a bang, and it took out the power to the floor I was on, and probably every other floor too. I still blame the cheapness of the components for the fault, but they wanted me to build so many systems in such a short space of time I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something along the line.

That's about the worst mistake I've made. .. Working for Aria. *laughs*

Used to buy from Aria a lot back in the days we ran a small computer store. Primarily just to talk to the ridiculously flirty account manager girl we had. How foolish we were when young :(

[qdave]

Deleting config.sys and autoexec.bat in dos :D

[Azusa]

Knocking a capacitor off the MoBo while installing a HDD.

[peacemf]

moved all the folders on C:\ into one folder in 1996 on windows 95 i think

[Dinggus]

Back in the AOL days, I probably ruined 7 computers due to inexperience and downloading "progz" which ended up being viruses or going to infected websites. I remember going to one for a fake new "prog" version which was audio assault 2.0, went to the .tk website and next thing I knew, had the BSOD for good.

Still looking for my favorite program which was Millennium 5.0 by Bofen, believe it was for AOL 3-4.

[Rigby]

I bought a Compaq Presario.

[Arceles]

I bought a Compaq Presario.

Had the Compaq 5253, was a good computer. (I burned the parallel port of it but never stopped working)

[kazgor]

great thread.

my previous PC was making a clicking sounds, figured it must be the fan i open the case up and powered up the PC and tried to figure out

where the noise was coming from... however i was look at the main CPU fan and it just didnt look like it was spinning, so i stuck my finger in...

yes you guess it.. got a good cut on my finger, broke one of the fins on the fan.. now the PC was making a very loud whaling sound.

Another time ages ages ago, loggin in to a customer site (as ROOT) and thinking i was in a temp directory issued RM -R, sadly i was

in the main Database folder and it wipe the whole lot... Customer had to restore from backup and took 2 days... i have since learned the errors

of Root!!

[MtnDewCodeRedFreak]

June 2002 - Not having a product key for Win 98 SE after reformatting/reinstalling - ended up having to use the TTY and relay system to call MS and explaining that I lost the key and they gave me a new key at no cost.

Dec 2004 - Used a regcleaning utility "RegScrubXP" and accidentally deleted the entire registry in Windows XP which borked up the AHCI in the BIOS. Ended up changing it to RAID and then reformatting/reinstalling.

Made various mistakes here and there. Not work-related, thank God.