Few Steps To Prevent Data Loss And Preparing For Disaster

Prevent Data loss and Preparing for Disaster

You know that computer security is important to you and your business. But do you know exactly what you need to do today to protect your home/business computer? Sooner or later, disaster will strike. It does not have to be anything as dramatic as storm, fire or flood - an overheated motherboard, electric jerk, a malfunctioning hard drive, spyware or a computer virus can be enough.

The cost of backup hardware and media is trivial compared to the value of your data. Imagine that you lost your customer list, your product database, your accounting spreadsheet or other crucial business data. How would your business continue?

So, back up your data. Nothing can prevent data loss better than doing backups of all your important data. You save hours, days and weeks of works doing backups regularly.

Here are few tips for implementing a disaster recover strategy:

1. Buy an external hard drive. These hard drives, which connect to your computer via the USB 2.0 or FireWire port (check which port your computer has), have fallen dramatically in price. Some of them are about the size of a paperback and can be easily transported. Most come with a backup program that lets you schedule automatic backups for your data. Prices have gone down dramatically and if you shop around you can get a hard drive for under $50.

2. Put all crucial computer-related information in a folder. This includes the customer support numbers of hardware and software manufacturers, serial numbers, warranty documents and configuration information. The last thing you want to do is to hunt for these items while you are desperately trying to get your computer working again.

3. Back up data and store the media offsite. Having an external hard drive is great, but what would happen in the case of theft, flood or fire? You should regularly (let your calendar program remind you) back up important data on CD or DVD and store these elsewhere, such as at a friend’s house or in a safe deposit box at your bank.

4. Back up data online. There are numerous companies that will store your data online for a fee, but it might even be enough to use a web-based e-mail service such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, as these now offer very generous storage quotas. Just email important files to yourself.

5. Have extra hardware. If your main computer fails, you can just move the external hard drive to your laptop and continue working. It might also be useful to keep an old computer around as a backup machine, as long as it still runs the programs you need to use. This way, you do not have to run out and buy a new computer right away, if your current one fails.

6. Central storage of data on the network. Your critical data if possible should reside in one place on the network. It is far simpler and easier to backup, restore and protect one machine than several. As a side benefit, physical and network access to that machine (and therefore to critical and perhaps sensitive data) can more easily be restricted, improving security.

7. Always quit your programs before shutting down your computer. When you quit a program, it saves vital data and then exits the program. If you just turn off your computer without properly exiting your applications and closing your files, you run the risk of loosing your data.

8. Avoid overheating and vibration. All hard drives are going to crash sometime. Electronic and mechanical drive components are sensitive to heat and vibration. Keep your computer in a dry, clean and dust-free environment. It is essential that the drive must be properly cooled and ventilated. Even if your system has embedded coolers and fans, additional coolers installed in a way of cooling the hard drive directly, will improve the drive's reliability. Heat and vibration are two critical causes of hard drive failure.

9. Scan for viruses. The threat of losing data from virus is now greater than it has ever been because of growth of the Internet. Using anti-virus software is as important as keeping backups. And the anti-virus software must be updated regularly. Take the time to scan the computer and any unknown media storage that will be used on your computer. This might come from someone who might have a whole shop full of infected computers.

10. User Friendly Operating system. Always use that operating system and software applications which is user friendly and easy to handle, because users are typically less technical.

All of above preventive measures, Human error is three times more potent a data destroyer than all viruses, floods, lightning bolts, earthquakes and hurricanes combined. One accidental / intentional deletion, for instance, can be as devastating as a natural disaster. Most people delete a file and say 'Oh my God, that was a week's worth of work' and then they start looking for a product to recover the file, rather than installing the product as preventative medicine. Until and unless you have the complete satisfaction about the recovery software doesn’t use that.

Spybot Search and Destroy - 2007 5 Tips to Stop Spyware

1. Find a free software product to download to protect yourself from spyware, malware, and annoying pop ups

2. Locate Spybot search and destroy spyware and download it to your computer and prepare yourself to begin learning how to use it.

3. You can find this software at new-spybots.com and download it for free.

4. After you download this information you can put set it up to work from any PC.

5. This information comes in different languages and you can get a free video tutorial on how to use this software in different languages as well.

I know this is just short of telling you how to actually stop spyware but if you feel you need more information on spybot search and destroy spyware then you can find this information along with a free download below.

You know that you can have all your information stolen from you online and you really need to take precaution's to stop this menance before you are victimized.

Did you know that over 457,398 people every day have their personal information stolen from them online and they do not even realize it because it comes in what is called a logger type spyware so it looks like an ad of some kind.

The spybot software is really a great spyware protector and the best part that it is totally free download to start.

If you are asking yourself the question "am I protected, is it already to late and my computer is infected," if you have to ask and you have been online then that answer is yes and you should start to stop it from taking over your computer.

Hard Drive Data Recovery Doesn't Need to Be Hard

Hard drive data recovery can be a difficult topic for many new computer users. No one wants to believe that their data is lost, and most people have no idea how to get it back. Fortunately, there are data recovery services available that can help you with the overwhelming task of recovering your lost data. This article is intended to help you learn more about hard drive data recovery and how you can learn more.

A hard drive is a "non-volatile" storage space designed to hold data. The data is stored on a magnetic surface which is called a hard disk platter. There are many reasons why data can be lost from the hard drive, including the mechanics of the hard drive itself, and external problems. Most hard drives today have several moving parts which need to be carefully synchronized in order to maintain a constant spin rate, called RPM, inside your computer.

Modern hard drives have "SMART" technology, which stands for "self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology." All that means is that the computer will diagnose itself and be able to solve the majority of its problems, also that it corrects the motors and fans when needed, and lets you deal with using the computer instead of trying to maintain it.

In order to understand hard drive data recovery, it is essential to understand how data is lost from a hard drive. Let's define data loss as an unforeseen loss of data or information previously stored on your hard drive. Murphy's Law demonstrates only when it's too late that we should have been backing up our hard drive better. The best way to recover data is to never lose it in the first place, but that is a topic for a different article.

Data can be lost during a power failure, because there is unsaved data in the memory which is not yet been saved to the hard drive. Data can also be lost through a disk failure which can happen for a number of reasons, usually mechanical such as a crash in the hard drive machinery itself. Software can also crash on your computer, especially if you are using Microsoft products, and could lead to a loss of data on your hard drive. Viruses or other malicious software can corrupt your data and is one of the biggest reasons for data loss. Fortunately, today's technology provides a pretty good track record on recovering data from your hard drive.

The best thing to do is to look in your phone book or on the Internet for a local hard drive data recovery specialist. These are people who have been trained or have experience in recovering lost data and can be your best friends-especially in an emergency situation. There are many who specialize in hard drive data recovery and are happy to help you with your data recovery problems. The price they charge is normally a small price to pay if the alternative is losing your data forever.