The data recovery software website for Mac and Windows is http://www.r3cover.com

The life of a hard drive is estimated to be around 10 years, so if your’s is getting up there in age, it might be a good idea to start backing up files now.

Really important files, like home or office inventories, that you need to prove loss to your insurance company in case of fire or other disaster, should be placed on CD’s, then placed in a safety deposit box at a bank.

ADDED COMMENT:

Fireproof boxes are only good if the fire is put out quicky. Most boxes will at best have a 1 hour fire rating, meaning the internal temperature of the safe will not exceed 350° when exposed to external temperatures of over 1700°.

How will a CD or external hard drive handle being exposed to a 350° temperature? I don’t think very well. The burning point of paper is somewhere around 450°, but ask yourself, at what temperature does plastic begin to warp, to become soft and distorted?

With an organisation of that size, every user’s machine that will have company data on it is the responsibility of the company to back up. It should be an automated system overseen by a separate group to Helpdesk.

Of course, users should have been setup with a network drive and all of those drives should reside on servers that are using RAID or some other form of mirroring to have duplicate sets of data. No user should be storing important company files on their local computer. Employees that do, should have it clearly explained to them that if they won’t comply with company policy, they are likely to be sacked.

Having made sure that all users are storing data on just a few machines that already have data mirroring, then it becomes a much simpler matter to back up all data on a daily basis because there are only a few machines that need attending to. Back up should be automated but a recovery should be tried at regular intervals - this again is the responsibility of the back up team. The back up team could be part of the team that goes around fixing machines, rather than Helpdesk whose job is sitting at desks answering phones and talking people through solutions and organising a response in person and recording details and keeping track of the problems.

Now that we’ve dispensed with company data, let’s look at users’ own personal data:

First question - why are they using company resources for their own files unless they have clearly been given permission?

Secondly, if they do use company resources for their own personal files, they should be responsible for backing up their own files and wear the loss if they don’t.

Problems all solved.

Now I know this may sound very hardline but the company data is a company’s livelihood. If they lose it, the business can go under. A company can lose their entire stock of computer equipment and still be up and running again quickly if they have backups of all their important files. They don’t need users making life harder by expecting their own personal files backed up or not putting company files into the central storage area to ensure back up is as easy as possible.

Even more important than disk encryption, make sure you’re running anti-virus, software firewall and pick good passwords.