Data Recovery Newsletters - December 2004

Happy Holidays from Ontrack!

Ontrack Data Recovery recently unveiled our annual Top Ten list of the strangest and funniest computer mishaps experienced by our customers in 2004. From a frozen hard drive to a flushed laptop, people continue to put their own data at risk at an alarming rate. Although computer malfunction remains the predominant cause of data loss, careless mistakes that could easily be prevented are on the rise. Top Ten Data Disaster List – A Look at the Worst Computer Mishaps from 2004 Click here to read the complete list

Say Cheese – Helpful Tips from the World of Digital Photo Recoveries

This holiday season, chances are your customers will be snapping up holiday memories using a digital camera instead of film. According to the Photo Marketing Association, digital cameras outsold traditional cameras for the first time ever in 2003 and digital camera penetration is expected to top 42 percent of households by the end of 2004. With digital cameras predicted to be among the hottest-selling products again this holiday season, more folks will be pointing, clicking and downloading to computers and digital printers than ever before.

With that in mind, there are several critical photo housekeeping pointers you'll need to consider since, unlike the foolproof methods for saving and protecting traditional film photographs (i.e. the trusty old shoebox), any kind of digital storage - be it hard disks, CD-ROM, DVD or tapes - can and will eventually fail. The following tips from Ontrack Data Recovery, the world's largest data recovery company, will help keep your memories safe and the holiday spirit alive:

1. Download as you go - Worse then losing or damaging your digital camera is also losing every last image you took on your family's trip home for the holidays. Periodically (once a month) download new photos to your computer;
2. Back up, back up, back up - Even if you have a monster hard drive, make secondary back ups on DVD, CD-ROM or other medium for extra safety of precious images;
3. Divide and conquer- Keep secondary back up copies in a different location from your primary back up. Preferably, these backups should be located away from your computer to protect against fire/flood;
4. View it or lose it - Check your digital photos at least once a year to be sure they're still readable. Stay current with technology so if in a few years your old computer, camera or media become discontinued or obsolete, you can transfer your photos to newer media before it breaks down;
5. Be kind to media - Storage media is small and fragile, so keep it stored in closed (zippered) compartments that also protect it from bending, flexing or crushing (i.e. your back pants pocket is not a good place to hold extra storage!);
6. Lock and go - If your removable camera media has a "write protect switch," make certain to enable the switch on your media as soon as you remove it from your camera. If your camera allows you to write protect/lock individual photos, this too will provide further safety from accidental data loss;
   
   And perhaps most importantly...
   
   
7. You can depend on data recovery - Have the name, Web site and telephone number of a reliable and respected data recovery company on hand. In the event of some form of data meltdown, experts from an experienced data recovery company will be the only thing standing between you and having to tell your children there aren't any memories of your 2004 holidays because your hard drive crashed!

Explore the Benefits of Ontrack® PowerControls™ Version 3.0

As most Exchange administrators know, the nature of Exchange backups, combined with Exchange's database structure, can make data recovery very difficult. This leaves administrators with difficult choices to make when deciding on a backup strategy. The choice between doing only full backups and brick-level backs leaves them with either limited access to restoring individual mailboxes and messages or too much time and expense involved in the process.

As a result, companies are left with a less-than-ideal choice when it comes to backups. Many use a hybrid approach and do both kinds of backups - full backups and brick-level backups - on different schedules. However, because brick-level backups are so costly and time-consuming, some companies do brick-level backups on only certain mailboxes, such as those of the top executives or top managers.

PowerControls mailbox recovery software solves these problems by allowing administrators to restore individual messages, mailboxes, attachments, and even notes, contacts and tasks from a previous full backup. What other great benefits does PowerControls provide? Click here to learn more