I lost my hard drive on my first two modern day pc's. At about the 1.5 year mark. and in those days you lost some files, usually some games. Second one I had become a quicken addict, but not a backup addict so after losing a few months of my finanacial life..... Since then an avid backupper.
Now people have their entire kid's lives (from a photo perspective) and lots of money (post napster) invested in mp3's etc.... Can imagine losing all the pix of my kids cause of not backing up.
Disk space is so cheap now, and backup systems from one touch firewire, usb2 and NAS are so readily avaialable... on top of DVD backups etc.
And with each camera download being a gig these days, space disappears pretty quick.
Also, most people backup for computer/disk failure. Remember theft, fire, flood etc. Get a copy of your important stuff to a relative or friend out of your town.
Andrew
BACKUP YOUR STUFF FOLKS! I can't say it enough. NEVER TRUST A DISK DRIVE!
In these two particular cases no data lost but it easily could have been.