With the value on information rising day by day, one of thegreatest threats to businesses of any size is data loss. If thedata centers in your business have ever experienced a hard drivedisaster, you quicky realized just how valuable the informationlost is.

And then, the situation becomes even worse, when you realizehow much it is going to cost for a disaster recovery specialistto try and retrieve or restore your data for you.

Here are some basic tips for avoiding such a situation.

1. If you company is using older computers, be sure your techsupport is regulary checking for any problems on your harddrives. By discovering problems before they have a chance towreak havock on your data, they will have an opportuntiy to backthe data up before it is no longer retrievable.

2. Make sure your techies are giving you the old hard diskswhen they do hard drive upgrades on your systems. Even when theinformation has been copied onto new disks, the old drives stillcontain all your valuable data. You don't want this getting intothe wrong hands. Plus, it is always good to have a backup whilethe new hardware is settling in.

3. Especially in a fast paced office environment, the thousandsof computer files can become disorganized over time. Make sureyour computer support is running defragmentation programs on aregular basis.

4. Keep the operating systems the same across all machines inyour office. This will help prevent hard drive corruption fromvarious users incorrectly installing programs on a system theyare not familiar with. Better yet, leave program installation,removal and system partitioning to your tech support.

5. Make sure employess report any problems that crop up ontheir machines. If even one computer starts acting strangely,running slower, or giving error messages, have support run ascan disk or CHKDSK immediately. Remember, it will be muchcheaper to repair one computer's hard drive than to pick up thetab after a total system disaster!

Keeping the following tips in mind when creating your data lossdisaster prevention plan will help limit not only headaches, butlosses to your bottom line.