Oops! Microsoft Loses All Sidekick Users' Data

Should we really have to remind Microsoft to make a backup if the data you're trying to protect is important or you know, not yours? No, we shouldn't. Tut, tut, tut.

Sidekick owners experienced a service outage last weekend. Given that the Sidekick does practically everything over the cloud, that means users couldn't access stuff like their calendars, photos, contacts or email. Buh-ummer, right? Well, it gets worse. WAY worse. Microsoft and T-Mobile have notified users that that "outage" might be permanent.

A "server failure" at Danger, the Microsoft-owned subsidiary that makes the Sidekick, has wiped out all user data. Anything stored on the server is gone with the wind. Microsoft said that Sidekick owners who haven't switched off their device can probably salvage what's stored locally but other than that, the likelihood that the company will be able to recover the data is "extremely low."

So what happened? Well, the bunny ears around the aforementioned server failure are there for a reason. At the moment, there's a rumor doing the rounds that Danger didn't backup user data before a SAN (Storage Area Network) upgrade. The company had Hitachi in to do the job for them and for some reason, no one at Danger backed anything up before Hitachi did the deed. Hiptop3 cites several sources who say something went wrong during the upgrade, everything was lost and there was no working backup to save the day.

Any Sidekick owners in the house and willing to share their tragic story? Let us know how your weekend panned out in the comments below.