Protecting Your Data - six steps to avoid digital data loss

There is no better way in XXI century to get in to trouble than to lose your digital data. Digital data loss is no longer a problem of the big companies and IT businesses. Now we all use electronic banking, e-mail services,online shopping etc. Losing contact information and vital documents from your hard drive can be painful and expensive without mentioning possible legal or career problems.
During recent years we at Data Recovery Specialists Ltd have noticed a huge increase in enquiries. Our free inspection and analysis of each case and emergency service for lost data, drives to us hundreds of people in tears who desperately want their data back. All that worry was due to the problems which could occur after they lost data from their HDDs, DVDs, Servers etc. We came across lost projects, essays and conference speeches, lost databases and contact databases, lost customers orders for e-commerce websites and bookkeeping files - we recover 95% of this data. We also noticed that in most of these cases, data loss could be avoided if the principal rules would be implemented.
To make it clear we came up with a list of six ways to avoid data recovery in the future. We recommend everyone to implement at least some of the following procedures:
1. Backup your data regularly,preferably to a separate hard drive (either internal or external) and also to removable media. Store the removable media in a separate building. Consider a batch program, which will run incremental backups at the end of each day. Do not rely on the verification process as this may not identify logical corruption - the only safe way to ensure the integrity of your backups is to restore them.
2. Ensure that you have adequate virus and spyware protection and that it is updated daily from the internet.Complete weekly scans and quarantine or remove any suspect files. Remember that any removable media that has come into contact with your machine has probably also been infected.
3. Do NOT store your data in any Windows or Mac default directory (eg "My Documents, Program Files" etc).This is the first place a virus or worm will seek to infect or destroy. Rename directories logically and store them under the root directory.
4. Partition your hard drive,storing your data, email databases, and program files on their own and separate to the operating system and application files. In the event of a failure the start-up and shutdown will not not affect your data. In the event of data loss, it also makes data recovery much easier with greater chances of success.
5. Export your address book and emails to removable storage regularly.Compress files to reduce size and delete unwanted emails. Ensure that your pst file remains below 2GB to avoid corruption.
6. Avoid using tools or utilities that test your computer,verify system configurations, repair corruption etc. Maintain your data by removing unwanted files and applications, running disk cleanup/check disk and defragmenting (DO NOT allow check disk to run on boot up if you have experienced data loss).
If you will implement those six principals when working with your digital data you can be much more confident that your digital world is not going to collapse in 2007.

About the Author
With 40 years experience, Data Recovery Specialists Ltd (http://www.datarecoveryspecialist.co.uk/) offer a data recovery service for most types and forms of corrupted or damaged storage media. If your data is lost just give us a call on 01737379999 or 02920706360 or send an email to service@datarecoveryspecialists.co.uk We will ask you a simple questions and give you an immediate estimate for recovering your data.
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