2011 Top Data Protection Tips

Do not attempt to power up equipment damaged by water. If the water infiltrated the hard drive or electrical components, electrical power can leave the hard drive unrecoverable and be hazardous to anyone that is handling the hard drive.
Do NOT DRY the hard disk. Whenever media is damaged by water our first instinct to remedy the situation is to try to dry it out ourselves. However, the contaminants contained in water are often not visible to the human eye and will damage the media irrevocably. Residues left on the hard drive platters and circuit board corrosion will need to be treated in-lab by professional engineers.
Keep the hard disk wet until you get professional help. Although it sounds paradoxical, keeping a hard drive wet aids data recovery. We therefore recommend putting the hard disk in a sealed container or plastic bag to prevent it drying out until professional engineers can dry the platters and other components in a sterile environment.
Never assume that data is unrecoverable, no matter what it has been through. Send the media to a professional data recovery service.

Do not shake, disassemble or attempt to clean any of the media that has been damaged. Improper handling can make recovery operations more difficult and valuable information may be lost.
Do not use common software utility programs on broken or damaged devices.
If you are dealing with larger servers, make sure that they have adequate air conditioning. Increases in computer processor speed have resulted in more power requirements, which in turn require better cooling, especially during the summer months.
Invest in some form of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), which uses batteries to keep computers running during power outages. UPS systems also help manage an orderly shutdown of the computer – unexpected shutdowns from power surge problems can cause data loss.
For mission critical situations, contact a data recovery professional before any attempts are made to reconfigure, reinstall or reformat.

Extreme heat can result in the premature failure of hard drives, while low humidity combined with dust in drought conditions can promote static electricity issues with electrical components. Adjust temperature and humidity control systems accordingly during changing weather conditions.
Install a surge protector and get in the habit of turning off your desktop computer or laptop during a storm to avoid any power strikes or surges caused by lightning strikes.
Backup your data at least once a month or more often.
Move important files and information, such as personal documents and photos, to a USB drive.
Before leaving for vacation, turn off and unplug your laptop or desktop computer.
Do not attempt to clean fire damaged media.
Do not place in refrigerator or freezer to cool media.
Do not try to remove hard drive - ship entire computer for recovery.

Stop using the media immediately. Shut the system down if deleted from the boot volume and keep it turned off.
Restore backups to a different volume; this ensures that all important files are good on the backup before possibly overwriting data on the active volume.
If there is a RAID problem, test the backup by restoring it to a different location or image each drive from the RAID before attempting a rebuild.
Do not create any new files on the disk needing recovery or continue to run virtual machines until the important data is recovered.
Do not run FSCK or CHKDSK file system repair tools on a virtual disk unless a good backup has been validated by restoring it to a different volume.
Call a professional data recovery service for further assistance.