As a business owner you need to acknowledge that should data go missing, it can be an incredibly stressful and worrying time. There’s no way to know what has happened to it immediately. You need to take the time to work out what’s gone wrong so that you can deal with the cause accordingly. Of course, that being said, it’s important that as soon as you notice that a piece of data is missing, that you start trying to work out what has happened, and recover the piece because the longer you leave it, the less likely you are to find and recover it.
Determining the cause of missing data isn’t always easy, hopefully, however, the tips and pieces of advice below will help you to do that.
What could have happened to your data?
The first question that you need to ask yourself is what could have happened to your data? You may think that you know what has happened, or you may have no idea of what the issue is. If you think that you know what’s caused the issue, then take the time to research it, so that you are sure. It could simply be that the data was deleted by mistake, it could be due to a computer error, or it could be linked to hackersYou need to know which of these is the cause of the issue so that you can deal with it accordingly.
Can you get it back?
Once you’ve determined what the cause is, i.e. such as a broken hard drive, the next step is to work out whether you can get the missing data back. If you’re not a pro at data recovery, it is probably worth asking someone who is, so that you give yourself the best possible chance of retrieving your missing data. Say, for instance, it’s your hard drive that’s broken, then you need to consult a hard drive repair specialist who is able to fix the hard drive and retrieve the missing data, or try to at least. Unless you’re an expert, don’t try to deal with the situation yourself, instead consult an expert, otherwise, you may end up making things worse.
How can you prevent this from happening again?
Last but not least, the next thing to find out is how you can prevent the same problem from occurring again. Some causes of data loss are harder to prevent, such as accidents or equipment breaking down. Leaving room in the operational budget for replacing hardware and updating as needed is a good practice. If the cause of your data loss is hackers, you can prevent this problem from happening again by increasing your server security. Or if the cause of your missing data is due to files not being saved in one specific place, making it easier for things to get accidentally deleted, the answer to this is training and storing all data in the same place. You have to know where all of your documents and pieces of data are saved to, as well as your employees. This helps keep data more organized and easier to find. Implementing a back-up system which auto saves daily, also helps should something accidentally get deleted. A previous day’s version can be restored which is better than none at all.
As a business owner it is your duty to keep your data secure and well maintained.
Photo Credits: Pixabay, flickr
