Data wipe
I had a PC at my office years ago that was running okay but the the network card had died and the sound card was also a little dodgy after an office move. At the time I wasn't in support at the time and had to hand over my machine to a support person. I said that it was very important that they left the harddrive alone as there was a set of large files that were too big for a CDR. So the machine was taken away and returned that afternoon and the drives had been wiped. I had words with the head of IT support and the staffer who was mere days into his job with the company was given a talking to. He had apparently thought that the machine was running a little slowly and decided wiping was the best fix. We told him that at the very least he should have contacted the user and asked if any files needed to be saved. He apologised and said he'd pay for a forensic data recovery service on the disk if needed. That was good of him. Unfortunately he then told me off for not storing my work on the server which let him down slightly. The look on his face as he had the words "broken network card" and "do not wipe" read out to him from the ticket.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
