There's already a thread on this in the forum, but the more I think about, the sadder it all seems - and I think it deserves some front page attention.

Diary-X, if you don't know, was a website - one of the original online journalling tools, a little like Livejournal or Blogger, but with a simpler emphasis on journal writing rather than the link-heavy style of most blogs. Since its launch in 2000, it attracted over 120,000 members in six years, in spite of its entirely non-profit nature and limited admin resources. It inspired some great writing, and was the creative home of many thousands of people - but two weeks ago, all of this was lost.On February 24th, it was announced in a stark message on the site here that the failure of one hard drive had resulted in the loss of the entire site - and every single diary account and post. The only existing backup was two years old, and didn't contain any posts either. The collective work of 120,000 people over the last six years had just blinked away in an instant.

It's a very sad event and a real digital tragedy. As a one-time DX'er myself, my heart goes out to everyone who lost their work of the last few years - and as the mug behind this place I can't help but feel for Stephen Deken, Diary-X's long suffering creator, for the pain he must be going through - to have built the place up for six years and then see it all dissappear for want of a backup.

Goodbye Diary-X, and good luck to all of its survivors.