I had worked at my present company for 3 years training people on computers and in 2001 was asked to join the IT department as the help desk. Unknown to me they fired the other IT person the same day. So I was the only IT staff.

A month later the accounting server died. Main app was Microsoft Dynamics on pervasive SQL. I managed to get the server up but had to re-initialize the RAID which wiped everything. I was already over my head. I thought I could use the backups to restore things. Unfortunately I had never looked to see what was being backed up, just assumed the previous person knew what to do. Well, you know what happens when you assume. There was very little that was backed up. I thought my career here was done.

Fortunately our payroll was handled offsite so the vendor was able to pay us. But we lost all the HR, GL, etc. My boss said it was not my fault as I was only help desk, not responsible for server maintenance.

I worked 12 hour days for the next three months ensuring things got fixed and backups happened at night. I also explained to the people in charge that our network was crap (Windows NT4) and needed to be upgraded.

Six months later we installed a new network, good tape backup, and hired a network admin.

Now I'm network admin, DBA, etc. but have learned much from all of you and test my backups and restores. 😀