A commercial making the rounds right now, where a groom is getting ready for his wedding and, rather than offering him the typical well wishes, people tell him, “You’re going to lose it all today.” He hears this from his father, his best man, and even the limo driver.

You begin to wonder what they mean as the look of trepidation on the groom’s face begins to grow. The tagline bears the message that data loss occurs without warning; you never know when or where it may happen.

This is absolutely true but, like other disasters, including natural disasters like hurricanes, floods or fires, there are ways you can be prepared for data loss caused by hard drive failure or other events.

You can’t tell exactly when data loss may occur, but here are three ways to make sure you’re not caught completely blindsided when it does happen — and can possibly prevent the complete loss of your mission critical data, whether it’s important operating and financial files for your business or simply your family photos (including those wedding pictures!)

1. Pay attention to your computer’s “normal” operations and especially if something seems abnormal. – Are read/write cycles taking longer than they used to? Is your computer making clicking or whirring sounds, or does it just sound louder than usual? These could be signs of impending hard drive failure.

2. Make sure your files are backed up. – As the commercial advises, data back-up in the cloud may give you access to your mission critical files from anywhere in the world if you experience hard drive failure or data loss due to an on-site natural disaster. Even so, there may be lag-time between your last back-up and the creation of new data that you need to continue running your business — or your life!

3. Have the phone number for a data recovery service you can trust handy at all times. – Don’t rely on being able to access the Internet or your smart phone when you need a data recovery service. Keep the toll-free phone number for 24 Hour Data (866-598-DATA) handy near your computer. We’ll also want to know the make and model of your hard drive and, if available, the serial number. All of this information will make it easier for our data recovery experts to recovery your lost data quickly and efficiently, so you can get back to business as usual.