A Data Recovery Strategy Will Give You Peace Of Mind

Sooner or later, every computer owner faces some sort of disaster. That's why a data recovery strategy is very important. It could be a virus, system problem, damaged hard disk. What would you do if there was a fire? Do you have data loss strategy? Are you prepared?

Can you honestly say that your advisor business can run without some kind of plan in place?

File corruption and data recovery are becoming much more common, although loss of productivity continues to be the major cost associated with virus disaster. (Source: 7th Annual ICSA Lab's Virus Prevalence Survey, March 2002)

It doesn't matter if you own or lease a computer. Your client data and your financial software is at risk. According to a computer data recovery specialist, the best way to prevent some of these disasters begins with having an anti-virus program to start.

Norton and McAfee are the best programs I've seen for this. Norton Ghost can save your computer's data life. It backs up and searches for damage in your computer. Then it corrects the damage. It is a great program. You should conduct daily a computer data recovery prevention process if you want it to run properly and for a long time.

Sometimes problems on your computer can originate from inside the hard disk itself. The hard disk drive is the primary source your computer uses for storing data. When a problem occurs here, your entire computer can eventually stop working or crash. You depend on the data stored in your computer to conduct business.

Stopping short of getting your tech person to make an appearance at a cost, here are some tips on how to protect your computer's hard drive from various disasters. You should always check your troubleshooter first when you discover a problem. This will often answer your questions and show you what to do.

First and foremost, back up your files. Every PC comes with its own backup program. If you run from Windows 95 or 98, this can be brought up by clicking START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, GENRAL, BACKUP.

To do this on Windows 2000 (xp and xpPro), or later click START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, TOOLS, SYSTEM CHECKER. The system checker automatically checks and corrects any problems on your disk.

You can try to run scan disk as well to correct any bugs and glitches in your computer by clicking START, PROGRAMS, START UP, AND RIGHT CLICK SCAN DISK. This will automatically correct any errors on your computer. If you have a problem that these methods can't help you with, you should turn to your Windows startup floppy.

When you install Windows it automatically asks you for the CD for your computer so that you can make a startup CD. When you incur a problem you can reboot your computer using it. It will help to correct problems that exist in your hardware as well. You simply restart your computer with the floppy inside the tower. The computer will read it and take you through the rest of the instructions.

You must use the defragmenter on your computer at least once a week to protect your hard drive and software. Using defrag will keep your computer optimized. I find that the best way to scan your disk, clean up your registry and defrag at the same time is to run the maintenance wizard on your computer.

This does everything you need all at once. To access the maintenance wizard, you can click on start, programs, accessories, system tools, and maintenance wizard. Press on the area that says thorough. This will ensure the greatest care in checking your computer for errors. Do not be alarmed if this takes a while because it always does.

At what point is the survival of your company at risk?40% said 72 hours, 21% said 48 hours, 15% said 24 hours, 8% said 8 hours, 9% said 4 hours, 3% said 1hour 4% said within the hour. (Source:2001 Cost of Downtime Survey Results, 2001)

You can also choose to save all of your files to a CD. This just keeps your programs and documents available in case you lose them later. As long as you are still running the same programs on your computer, you will be able to open them up whenever you need them. All you have to do is right click the file you want to send and then click send to, CD. Keep in mind that if you chose to put software on your CD to send the setup.exe file not the icon.

Another computer data recovery tip:

To protect your computer from a flood it is best to buy the plastic cover for your tower, and do not store your tower on the floor.

There is very little that you can do to physically protect your computer from a fire. However, computer data recovery of lost data on back your hard disk after an electrical surge by reboot and go to your DOS prompt and click E40: 72 34 12, RCS, FFFF, RIP, 0000 G.

Lastly, you want to restart your computer ion safe mode, then go to your troubleshooter. Just click, start, shut down, ok, press and hold CTRL (or in some cases f8) and enter the number for safe mode. This will keep your computer from crashing while you are trying to fix problems with it. This will make computer data recovery a little more easier. Of course, the best way to protect your computer data from disasters is to keep doing the regular upkeep.

If these general tips don't help, it is best as part of your computer data recovery prventative strategy to either buy software that is specifically designed to fix your hard drive ie. FIX-CIH or it may be time to have someone do it for you. However, it won't get that far if you regularly follow the above tips.

Coping with a Serious Data Loss from your Computer Hard Drive

Data recovery is an expensive reality. It's a hard fact that it happens more often then users like to admit. A recent study by the accounting firm McGladrey and Pullen estimates that one out of every 500 data centers will experience a severe computer disaster this year. As a result, almost half of those companies will go out of business. At the very least, a data loss disaster can mean lost income and missed business opportunities.

The other side of data recovery is the psychological and emotional turmoil it can cause to IT managers and business owners. Despair, panic, and the knowledge that the whole organization might be at risk are involved.

In a sense, that's only fair, since human error is one of the two largest contributing factors in data recovery. Together with mechanical failure, it accounts for almost 75 per cent of all incidents. (Software corruption, computer viruses and physical disasters such as fire and water damage make up the rest.)

Disk drives today are typically reliable. Human beings, it turns out, are not. A Strategic Research Corp. study done in 2000 found that approximately 15 per cent of all unplanned downtime occurred due to human error. A significant proportion of that happened because users failed to implement adequate backup procedures, either having trouble with their backups, or having no backup at all.

How does it happen that skilled, high-level users put their systems - and their businesses - at such risk? In many cases, the problem starts long before the precipitating system error is made,that is, when users place their faith in out-of-box solutions that may not, in fact, fit their organization's needs.

Instead of assessing their business and technology requirements, then going to an appropriate engineered solution, even experienced IT professionals at large corporations will often simply buy what they're sold. In this case, faith in technology can be an vice instead of a virtue.

But human intervention itself can sometimes be the straw that breaks the technology's back. When the office of a Venezuelan civil engineering firm was devastated by floods, its owners sent 17 soaked, mud-coated disks from three RAID arrays to us in plastic bags.

A tough enough salvage job was made even more complex by the fact that someone had frozen the drives before shipping them. As the disks thawed, yet more damage was done. (After eight weeks of painstaking directory-by-directory recovery, all the data from the remaining fifteen disks was retrieved.)

Sometimes, the underlying cause of a data loss event is simply shoddy housekeeping. The more arduous the required backup routine, the less likely it will be done on a regular basis. A state ambulance monitoring system suffered a serious disk failure, only to discover that its automated backup hadn't run for fourteen months. A tape had jammed in the drive, but no-one had noticed.

When disaster strikes, the normal human reaction is panic. Because the reovery of data signifies critical consequences, even the most competent IT staff can jump to conclusions, and take inappropriate action.

A blank screen at a critical time can lead to a series of naive decisions, each one compounding the preceding error. Wrong buttons get pushed, and the disaster only gets worse. Sometimes the pressure to correct the system failure speedily can result in an attempt to reconfigure an entire RAID array.

IT specialists are typically not equipped to deal with crisis modes or data recovery techniques. Just as a good physician is trained to prolong life, the skilled IT specialist is trained to keep the system running. When a patient dies, the physician turns to others, such as nurses or counselors to manage the situation. When significant data loss occurs, the you need to turn to the data recovery professional.

Data recovery specialists are innovative problem solvers. Often, the application of basic common sense, when no-one else is in any condition to apply it, is the beginning of the journey towards data recovery. The data recovery specialist draws on a wealth of experience, married to a "never say die" attitude, and a comprehensive tool kit of problem-solving procedures.