souixan on 02 January 2008
It has been known to happen with some Hard drives in general but the likelihood is extremely rare and almost never happens in this day and age.
As far as if it could happen usually it only happens while near magnets I've only once in all my years heard of it happening spontaneously. It's why I'm slowly switching over to solid state HDD's. Did your friends per chance have their PS3 near a Speaker? I would be willing to bet the speaker was not magnetically shielded and wiped their HDD.
