Paul Kilduff: You’re listening to the AllBusiness podcast. I’m Paul Kilduff. If you’re getting this through iTunes and RSS feed or an online streaming-media player, you can hear interviews with other experts at AllBusiness.com.

Kilduff: Losing data vital to your company is a subject no one wants to think about. But it can happen and not just to the other guy. Whether through human or mechanical error or fires, floods, or other natural disasters, recovering this data can seem like a lost cause. Until you meet someone like John Christopher. As the senior data recovery engineer of DriveSavers, a company that specializes in retrieving data, John has rescued thousands of seemingly lost hard drives from the graveyard. John, how do you go about planning for a catastrophic loss of data?

John Christopher: Well, the obvious is to back up your data. And that means, of course, making an identical copy of your critical files, your critical information, stuff that you need to protect to keep your business going to another piece of computer media and taking it away from your main computer system because if you leave it next to your computer, anything can happen to it. There could be some catastrophic flood, fire, or even just a sprinkler, that a pipe that might bust in your living room and start flooding things. So you want to take your backups away from your computer system. That’s step #1. Probably step #2 which really would precede step#1 would almost be to get rid of some of the files and things that you might not need on your hard drive everyday and that’s really more about archiving your information. And what you want to do is archive old data, make duplicate sets and get those away from your computer system, lock them up perhaps in the bank, in a safe deposit box or send them to your family members in other states, anywhere away from your computer system where that information can be safe.

Kilduff: Can you put them on CDs? Is that what you’re suggesting or…

Christopher: Well, that opens the door to another question which is, what do I back up to? Because there are all kinds of different types of storage available for backing up now and most of it is fairly low cost. You can back up from everything from a small keychain-style USB flash drive to a CD ROM, DVDs, all the way up to high-end raid systems or tape drives or what have you. Most of the time though, take a look in your computer system and the drive you built in, the CD or DVD drive is what I’m talking about. It might work and suffice to back up the amount of information you already have. It’s all about capacity. For instance, a DVD disk can hold about 4 gigabytes of information, 4 gigabytes of critical files and you want to be able to rewrite that information to your disk everyday as a daily backup. So what you want to use will be something like a DVD RW, a rewritable disk. If you’ve got more than say 4 gigabytes, you’d have to either spread it over multiple disks or you can invest in a portable hard disk drive which you could again, take away you’re your office location or lock up in a fire safe, at the very least, it’s again all about how much capacity you’re going to need to back up your files.

Kilduff: And you’re suggesting that we back up stuff everyday?

Christopher: Absolutely. There are even programs that you can purchase, backup software programs that will automatically back up your data for you at a predetermined time. These are wonderful because you don’t have to worry about the backup as long you have the device connected and ready, it will back up at a predetermined time. Some folks who have lots of data that they use everyday, perhaps will back up more than one time a day and back up to multiple devices, different types of drives. And that also can be very, very convenient to have the automated software running but don’t always rely on that. You should always check that to make sure. Check your backups and make sure that you are indeed backing up the data and that the device is working properly.

Kilduff: So John, I come in from a long weekend into the office on a Monday morning and staring at me in front of my face is the so-called blue screen of death. All my data is gone. What do I do and what do I avoid doing?

Christopher: You have a few different options when you lose data. DriveSavers is in the business of data recovering. We’ve been doing data recovery for over 20 years and we’re recommended by many manufacturers and drive makers, computer makers or what have you. Your choices are to, #1, you can attempt to do data recovery on your own using some kind of software utility. We don’t recommend that you do that because if your information is critical, you have just one chance and sometimes, that’s the only chance. So you could destroy the information and make it completely unrecoverable. If the information is absolutely critical and you have to get it back then you want to choose a professional data recovery company like DriveSavers that are in the business of exclusively recovering your data.

Kilduff: What are some of common mistakes that people make when their computer drive has been damaged or God forbid, starts making funny noises?

Christopher: yeah, that’s a good point is that when your drive makes any kind of unusual noises, any kind of repetitive clicking sounds or maybe grinding or anything that sounds out of the ordinary, it could be an indicator that there’s some type of media damage. Media damage meaning that the media that’s responsible for holding your data is somehow damaged and the read/write heads that are responsible for reading and writing your data cannot read the information necessary on the drive. So it’s important if you hear that repetitive clicking or grinding, scraping sounds, you want to turn off your computer system or the drive as quickly as possible and go no further with it. Once again, contacting a professional data recovery service company is really your best option.

Kilduff: Well what if nothing happens? I know that on my Mac, recently this has happened and I hate to admit this, but there has been occasionally this growling sort of sound and then everything’s fine but it does do this every once in a while. It’s an older computer but…

Christopher: If it’s growling, perhaps it’s just hungry. Maybe you need to feed it more data. But seriously, if it is making any unusual noises, you might want to have that checked out. It could be something as simple as say, the power supply inside the computer system, maybe malfunctioning. It could be an indicator that the drive is starting to go south so you don’t want to let it run like that for too long. We see quite a few drives that come into DriveSavers where the users have kept their drives running for a very, very long period of time and they’ve made it impossible in some cases to get data back because they have caused severe media damage on the disk by letting it run for too long.

Kilduff: Is what you’re saying that I could be damaging my data and my information on my computer by not taking care of this right away?

Christopher: Absolutely! Absolutely. It’s not like a car that you could drive for you know 50 or 100 miles and could take it to your dealer on the day that is most convenient for you. It’s your critical data and you’re depending on it everyday. So you should look at it as something vital and important that you need to take care of it immediately.

Kilduff: OK, well, I’ll get right on that, John. What about, in your business, you must be privy to all kinds of bizarre incidences. I understand that you retrieved a laptop from the bottom of the Amazon River. Was there any retrievable data on that?

Christopher: Absolutely! Yeah, it’s an interesting story that you bring up because back in 1993, there was a French cruise ship that was sailing down the Amazon River and a barge had sunk and the cruise ship hit this underwater barge and began taking on water. There was a performer, a woman who was a juggler on the ship and she had been writing her memoirs and collecting notes about her travels from all around the world on this cruise ship. And she was very concerned because everyone was made to evacuate from the ship, of course, because they didn’t know how severe this damage was. The ship took on water and her Mac Powerbook sank along with the cruise ship and went into the water. She had waited for the salvage operation to begin and she got very impatient. So she decided she would rent some scuba gear because she was a certified diver and she had the presence of mind to get her stateroom key and a flashlight. She dove down into the Amazon River, the piranha-infested Amazon River, I might add, and was able to find her way to her stateroom where she retrieved her Mac Powerbook along with many of her personal belongings. She contacted Apple Computer and they were able to point her in the direction of DriveSavers and she shipped it to us in a styrofoam container and, in fact, it even still contained some Amazon River water in the bottom of that container. And within just 24 hours, we were able to disassemble that entire Powerbook and get the drive out and clean everything that we needed to. We rebuilt it using parts from our inventory and we got everything off the drive for her.

Kilduff: I understand you also retrieved several Simpsons’ scripts that were lost.

Christopher: That’s right. That’s right. In fact, one of the famous scripts which was the season finale known as “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” several years back was actually one of the scripts that was lost on a drive that belongs to one of the scriptwriters and producers of the show and I was working on that job myself as a matter of fact. The drive came in and was heavily damaged due to some power spikes that had occurred and knocked out this hard drive that they’ve been storing a whole season’s worth of scripts on. I didn’t really know who these scripts belonged to or who the drive belonged to but I did call the customer when I was finished and he asked me to go through some of the information that I had recovered over the phone with him and I noticed a lot of Simpsons’ icons and games and things that were on the drive as I was making my way to the folder that he asked me to take a look at and I thought, “Wow! This guy is a Simpsons fanatic, even more so than myself!” And when I got to the folder called Scripts, I opened it up and saw several of the scripts there and found the “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” episode and opened that up for him and he breathed this sigh of relief over the phone and he said, “Those are the ones I needed. You got them all back.” And I said, “These are amazing. Where did you get these scripts?” He said, “I wrote them.” So it was truly phenomenal and he was very grateful and Bill Oakley was his name and as a result, he was signed a photo to DriveSavers and we have it in our Hall of Fame which is now posted on our website at drivesavers.com. You can take a look at some of the other famous folks up there including Sean Connery and Adam Sandler and Harrison Ford who have all sent us their damaged and broken hard drives.

Kilduff: Celebrities who have not backed up their data.

Christopher: That’s right. That’s right.

Kilduff: The hall of shame, may perhaps.

Christopher: Well, it makes sense because a lot of these folks are traveling a lot and that’s what happens when you travel. You know, laptop computers don’t always get backed up when you travel and that seems to be the case whether you’re in show business or any other kind of business. That’s the situation. You got to remember to back up your data.

Kilduff: That’s right. Well, I’m glad you brought that up about backing up from a laptop while you’re on the road because it’s something I wanted to ask you. How do you do that? How easy is it to do that?

Christopher: It’s fairly easy these days but I think one thing that folks forget sometimes now when they’re traveling with their laptop is the fact that they have a lot of sensitive information about their company and about a lot of proprietary information. Things that they don’t probably want to share with the general public. And in doing so, when they’re traveling, they are really risking the loss of this data, not only the computer itself but really the information, the personal information, the private information and business information. And so, my recommendation is always to have some kind of encryption software that’s used to protect that sensitive data should your laptop get stolen and backing up also, you know, you want to make sure that your data is also encrypted when you’re on the road and you can back up on something as again as small as I call them the keychain-type flash drives, if you have a small amount of data, all the way up to using online backup services. Places or like things that you know, if you have an internet connection somewhere, you can back up your data.

Kilduff: You’re listening to an AllBusiness podcast with data recovery expert John Christopher. John, say you want to be proactive about all this and set up what’s called a business continuity plan. What is it and what exactly does it entail?

Christopher: Business continuity means that you have a plan in place should anything go wrong with your business. Anything that could happen, any kind of catastrophe or what have you, you need to sit down and figure out a business continuity plan and there are lots of continuity planners that you can find out on the web that can help your small business get up to speed and make sure that you’re protected because you want to be there for your customers and if something happens to you, your data or your facility, you must have some kind of backup. And having a data protection plan is really a subset of a business continuity plan. Really being able to make sure that all of your critical data, everything from your inventory files to invoices to tax records and what have you, your key contacts, everything that you use every single day of your business life is protected and backed up in a way that can be accessed should there be some form of business catastrophe. That’s what you need to look at and you can hire a consultant who can come in and create a type of backup plan, a strategy and try and make it as bulletproof as possible.

Kilduff: So it sounds like what you’re saying is that you should almost have an office that is a duplicate of your current office offsite that has all your data and all the important stuff you need?

Christopher: That’s right. At the very least, you know, if you have a small business, you just need to have contingencies in place. How will you operate if? It’s the what if scenario. That’s what it’s all about is thinking about what would happen if my office were destroyed, you know, heaven forbid in an earthquake or something? How would I go on continuing my business? Where would my information be stored? What would happen to let’s say, if my big supplier went out of business? What happened if one of my key contacts left one of my key suppliers or what have you. It’s all about the what if scenario. Those are things that you need to think about.

Kilduff: And when hire a consultant to go over this, will they go through this with a checklist on all these things that you need to have a plan for?

Christopher: Yes, definitely. You can hire business continuity planners and they will go through--it’s their business to do this type of work and they’ll make sure that everything’s covered.

Kilduff: Is it your experience that most of the people that you work with have these kinds of plans in place?

Christopher: Not necessarily. You have to remember that because DriveSavers has been in business again for so long, we see all kinds of different scenarios and usually what it means is that the information, the critical data that’s been lost has not been backed up for some reason and that could be because the responsibility of the backup fell to a single individual who isn’t working for the company anymore or perhaps the software that was connected to the backup device wasn’t speaking or talking appropriately, if you will, to the hardware or that backups that you thought you were dealing every single day were never checked to make sure that they were backed up or critical files were never added to a backup set. There are so many scenarios and they’re all based on assumption that things are okay. Everything’s working fine. We have backup. Well, I’m here to tell you. Data will get lost and it gets lost everyday and that’s why DriveSavers is in business.

Kilduff: Sounds like a pretty good business to be in. What are the odds of getting data back? I mean, is it, can you guarantee that you’re going to get data back from a hard drive you can’t or can you?

Christopher: I don’t think anybody could guarantee that data would be retrieved in all types of scenarios. You can poke holes into any kind of business continuity plan or data backup plan. There are always the unusual and odd things that can happen that are just not looked at or determined and I think that when you have a hard drive with critical data, we always like to say at DriveSavers that really, the first shot at recovering data is always the best shot. And that’s why we are so adamant about our customers whenever possible not trying to recovery critical information on their own. If you have noncritical information or information that you have partially backed up or that you could easily recreate then you can certainly get a commercial utility program, try running that on the drive, hire a consultant maybe to come in and attempt to do something or take it to a local service provider that you trust and know is going to take care of your data and be secure with your personal data.

Kilduff: I know that you were able to retrieve some data that had been crushed by an 18-wheel truck in New York City where the actual hard drive had been compressed and I don’t mean compressed as far as the software or whatever. But you know, is that an unusual incident that something that was physically damaged like that, you were able to retrieve the data?

Christopher: Yes, we do have our museum of disasters online where you can go up and have a look at some of the most unusual situations where we were able to retrieve data and indeed, one where that we received was from an individual in New York City who--he had his laptop bag on his shoulder along with his phone and his Palm device and he was crossing the street. Unfortunately the light changed while he was in the middle of the street and as he was running to get to the curb, he tripped and dropped his bag. Well, if you’ve been to New York City, you would know that sometimes traffic there doesn’t really care much about pedestrians and he got himself--he picked himself up and got out of the street as quickly as possible, leaving the laptop bag behind him and he turned around in time to see an 18-wheel truck drive over it and the tires crushed this laptop bag. In fact, it ran over it several times. It was sent to DriveSavers in the laptop bag and in fact, there were truck tires on the laptop bag. He had described it as a brand-new bag. It looked like it had for about 25 to 30 years when we got it. It was very ragged and indeed, the laptop itself was compressed, as you say, not with software. Fortunately, we were able to disassemble it and get the drive out and the drive platters themselves had minor damage and we have what’s known as a clean room, a dust-free environment where we can disassemble drives down to the component level and rebuild it from scratch. And from there we were able to rebuild his drive and rescue all of his financial data. It was an individual that worked at Oppenheimer.

Kilduff: So all was not lost but was that highly unusual that you were able to retrieve data from such a catastrophic event like that?

Christopher: I think the event itself was more catastrophic than anything else. Not necessarily that we were able to retrieve data in unusual circumstances but it’s such an unusual event and you know, that’s why we have our museum because there are strange things that can happen. Floods, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and 18-wheelers.

Kilduff: Alright. Well, John, thanks for coming in.

Christopher: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Kilduff: You’ve been listening to an AllBusiness podcast with data recovery expert, John Christopher, senior data recovery engineer with DriveSavers. Send your feedback on this show and suggestions for topics and guests to podcasts@allbusiness.com. I’m Paul Kilduff, thanks for listening.