Ever lost everything, all your computer data, or you thought you did until your computer technician had some hope for you? Can data be recovered from a crashed drive if you don't have backup files? According to my very smart tech friends, YES! The way you organize the data on your computer can have a significant effect on the likelihood of data recovery. A few simple steps can make it easier for data recovery experts to find your precious data once it's gone missing.

• Make multiple copies of critical files and put them into different folders. This will increase the likelihood of data recovery experts being able to recover one of those copies.
• Put all of your most valuable data in the same folder.
• Take advantage of the disk defragmenter on your computer. "Defragging" physically reorganizes the contents of the disk in order to store the pieces of each file close together. Having a majority of the file located in the same place on the disk helps recovery technicians locate the file faster.
• Copy your critical files on thumb drives. Copying to a thumb drive is faster than burning a CD or DVD and it is easier to store as well.
• Consider adding an internal or external hard drive to your system. By using a computer with multiple hard drives, you can store personal documents on a different drive than your program files.

I personally have invested in a couple of external hard drives, a couple of thumb drives (they're the best) and a special CD /  DVD burner. It gives me peace of mind to know that if the worst happened, I have something to fall back on.