I just had one so I'll start.

I recently updated my arch install on my raspberry pi and I could no longer ssh into it. I suspected that might be the issue or perhaps some changes I made the night before. Anyways I spend about an hour trying to figure it out. Reseting config files, reinstalling packages, removing anything attached to the pi and so on. Rebooting and restarting services etc etc.

Anyways I ran ifconfig in sheer exasperation and found that at about the time I ran the update, the IP address changed. So yeah, feel like a total idiot. Now you share

Bought a second hard drive for backups, decided to put it INSIDE the computer (which was a stupid move). Moved my music to the disk (stupid idea, i should have copied not moved), then later in the day i had to format a USB stick, so i insert the usb stick and created a new partition table on /dev/sdb, not thinking that i now have a second drive (which was on sdb)

Ended up formatting my backup disk. Doh. Then spent the next 2 days re-ripping all of my CDs....

Ever tried recovering with photorec? :P

Actually, you should have been able to use TestDisk to recover the previous formatting and directory structure. I've used that before in a similar situation. (backed up then formatted the backup by mistake)

And then there's the time I put in my username and password to login and it wouldn't login. I tried three times before it dawned on me that it was not my laptop and the username/password was different! :P (favours for friends never go unpunished!)

I've done a similar thing. Had a 1TB ESATA drive plugged in and used for backups and ripped DVDs as overflow from the RAID I used as home. I plugged in a 1GB USB stick and proceeded to format it in gparted. 1TB and 1GB look very similar when you're tired and doing three things at once...
I'm not saying it won't happen again (I'm not that stupid) but I have learned to be a lot more careful and also try to label all my drives. That and I now only have 3 physical drives attached to my PC the majority of the time rather than 7.

I had a similar issue to the OP. After a power outage, I could only SSH into my server from my internal LAN, but not anywhere else on the Internet. I had a tab open and almost clicked "Post new thread" when I remembered that we have a dynamic IP, and that the modem rebooting probably changed it. One visit to Google later, and it was confirmed.

you think that's bad, hehe, i remember once i had an old 100MHZ dell unit i was using as a server in my room
(nfs/nis/dhcp/apache/netatalk/samba)

i was trying to remove an old add-on card that was no-longer useful, and forgot that unlike AT units, this older ATK system didn't completely power down the motherboard when you issued the shutdown command to linux, it just halted the system and you had to physically flip the switch, well i went and issued the shutdown command, heard the hard drives click off (or at least park themselves), went to pull the card and was greeted with magic blue smoke, fortunately i didn't completely fry the motherboard but the card was needless to say, toast, not sure about the slot from which I removed the card from as i never tried putting a card in it after that.

either way i never forgot to flip the switch from then on.

another one i did was i had a matrix orbital character LCD, and accidentally plugged in the power cable backwards, the ribbon actually started to fry like a buring fuse on a firework device, as in from one end to the other. though i pulled the power almost immediately the damage was already done, the unit never woked properly again sadly it was junk.

Wow, I've never ever made a mistake, ever. Not one. Nopew!

...never?

I have a tendency to skim through instructions and howtos, then do what I think I've read. I'm surprised things haven't gone badly wrong more often.

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I used Windows for 11 years, because it came with the computers I bought......

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/bin/rm -rf /

Wasn't that a mistake, was it?

Can't say I'm familiar with the ATK format, but my AT machines didn't completely shutdown unless I manually shut them off. Anyways, what you did with the add-on card, I did with a 386 CPU. I had been testing some components, and I ended up pulling the CPU while the system was powered up. There wasn't any smoke or sparks though. The board was still good, but the CPU was now a paperweight.

Nopew.

Any good person out there has made a bunch of mistakes. And they have made really dumb ones. The good techs learn and move on.

Fair point...

er.. i meant unlike ATX units, older AT units didn't completely shut down.