Computer Disasters:Preparing for the Worst

Expect the best, prepare for the worst, according to the maxim. This plays out in interesting ways with personal computers.

Computer disasters run the gamut, resulting from such causes as computer viruses, hard disk crashes, accidentally erased files, accidentally reformatted disks, sabotage, theft, lightning strikes, fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and even terrorist bombings.

The recent trio on the East Coast of rare earthquake, rare tornadoes and common enough hurricane emphasizes the reality of natural disasters.

A ruined computer or broken hard drive may not be anywhere near as tragic as the loss of life, but computer disasters can and have cost people lots of money and hassle, and when crucial data was irretrievably lost, they've even caused some businesses to fail.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, according to another relevant maxim.

Here are some important, and relatively easy, preventive measures that any computer user, whether in a business, professional or home setting, can take.

Back up your data

This has always been and remains the single most important disaster prevention measure. Even if your computer or other device gets trashed, as long as your data is intact, you're good to go on a new device.

USB flash drives, also called flash drives or thumb drives, let you store lots of data on a device you can pop into your pocket when heading for safe ground. Kingston Technology (www.kingston.com) offers its brand of DataTraveler flash drives with capacities from 2 to 256 gigabytes targeted at consumers, businesses and government agencies.