Data Recoveries of the Rich and Famous

DriverSavers, a data recovery service, offers testimonials from the likes of Sting, Sean Connery, Sarah Jessica Parker, Industrial Light and Magic, Keith Richards, and Isaac Hayes—all of whom sent them their thrashed hard drives and got their data back. John Christopher of the company says:

A few years ago, I had done a data recovery on a drive and was calling the customer to confirm that I had gotten back all the information he needed from the drive. He asked me to go through and check these folders and I noticed a lot of Simpson’s stuff on his drive like icons and games. He asked me to check the folder called “Scripts.” We launched one of the documents and I said, “Wow, these are great. Where did you get them?” and he said that he wrote them. It turned out that he was one of the writers and producers for the show “The Simpsons.” He then told me that, amazingly, this was the only copy of twelve scripts that they had not yet produced, including their season finale of that year which was “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” so thank goodness we could get all his data back. They were most grateful and they even sent us an autographed picture signed by Homer.

Even better stories are to be had in The Museum of Disk-Asters. Like the laptop that sat at the bottom of the Amazon River for two days.

This is why electronic writing fascinates me: as fragile and ephemeral as it is under some circumstances, under others it’s the stickiest and most persistent medium we’ve ever devised. That conundrum is at the heart of my book.