In late 1998, as Pixar was finishing "Toy Story 2," an employee accidentally executed a deletion command, "rm -r -f *," targeting the root directory of the film's files. This command rapidly began erasing character models, assets, and entire sequences, leading to the loss of approximately 90% of the movie's progress and two months of work. Former Chief Technical Officer Oren Jacob described watching elements like Woody's hat and boots vanish from the system.
The situation was exacerbated by the discovery that Pixar's backup system had been failing for weeks, leaving no recent copies of the film. However, serendipitously, Galyn Susman, the film's supervising technical director, had been working remotely due to maternity leave. She consistently copied the project's database to her home computer, a practice uncommon at the time but which proved to be the film's salvation. Jacob recounted rushing to Susman's home to retrieve her computer, which was then carefully transported back to Pixar's offices.
While Susman's backup wasn't entirely up-to-the-minute, it contained enough recent data to recover most of the lost work, saving the movie from complete disaster. This event not only allowed "Toy Story 2" to meet its hard-set November 22, 1999 release date but also highlighted the critical importance of robust backup systems. Despite this near-catastrophe, the film went on to gross nearly $500 million worldwide, cementing Pixar's reputation for quality and resilience.
