With hurricanes and tropical storms expected to become more frequent as a result of global warming, this is a good time for advisors and their dealers to think about the safety of their computers systems and all the data stored there.

There are a number of steps you can take to protect important data before catastrophe strikes. And if the worst happens, as it did when hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans last year, there are additional steps you can take to salvage your digital assets.

Here are some tips to help you prevent and recover from data loss disasters.

> Protect Your Power Supply.

One of the first things that happens with storms and hurricane weather is disruption of the power supply. Wind and rain can knock out local generating stations, or a lightning strike can send a surge directly to your computer systems. Power spikes are a perennial threat to hard drives, which can lose all of their data if a power surge reaches them.

“If my lights went out right now, even if I had a backup power supply, I’d fall onto the floor, reach out and pull the plug,” says Scott Gaidano, president of Novato, Calif.-based data recovery firm DriveSavers Data Recovery Services. “When the power goes off for a minute or two, [then] comes back on — that’s when spikes occur. You can have many of those in seconds.”

The experts recommend you use surge protectors in any place in which computers are plugged.

> Take Care Of Data Tapes, Cds And Dvds.

Data tapes are very high-capacity storage mechanisms for archived data. A major drawback, however, is that, like audio tapes, the metallic oxide coating on this media is very susceptible to damage from both fire and moisture.

“Tapes should be stored off-site. But everyone keeps them in a box on the floor,” says Tim Margeson, general manager of CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc. in Markham, Ont. “So, if the building has a foot or two of water, you have to write off those tapes.”

Making sure that tapes are in a place in which they cannot get wet will help to protect your company’s historical data assets.

CDs and DVDs, which can store gigabytes of information at a time, are relatively well protected from water damage. The media itself is not mechanical (no moving parts) and does not rely on magnetism or on heads that float very close to the surface of the drive. They also come with a plastic coating. Consequently, making backups of your data to these media is a good business practice. Sending the discs by courier to a remote location is even better. Of course, you or your staff must remember to do this every week.

As long as the discs are kept in cases and are not scratched, recovering data from a CD or DVD can be relatively easy. Simply cleaning the surface with distilled water and leaving it to dry for 20 minutes is usually enough to get your data back.

> Buy A Fire Cabinet.

While DVDs and CDs are less susceptible to grime and dust than hard drives and tapes, they are very vulnerable in a fire because they are made of plastic. Conversely, experts report a high rate of recovery from fire-damaged hard drives. If you keep your backup data on-site, invest in a fire safe that you can use to store your vulnerable discs and tapes.

> Back Up Your Data Off-site.

Not all data loss happens as a result of physical damage. Sometimes, accidental deletion is the culprit. In this case, you may be able to get your data back using file-recovery tools such as Norton System Works. However, you should still be prepared for some data loss. The more activity that takes place on your hard drive after a file is deleted, the less chance there will be of recovering that file intact using off-the-shelf software. Instead, you may have to rely on a professional company to use industrial-strength fo-rensic tools.

In any data-recovery situation, prevention is more useful than cure. But backing up your data is only one part of the prevention problem. If a disaster hits your main office and your backup media are on the premises, everything could be taken out in one fell swoop.

@page_break@Off-site backup is imperative for financial services companies, which rely heavily on client data that is highly confidential. Data can be sent off-site to a remote location either physically (via a courier) or electronically. Either way, should that hurricane eventually hit, you’ll be glad you thought ahead.

> In The Event Of Disaster.

Hard drives are designed to filter only dust. In the event of a flood, they will still let water into the unit. Water carries mineral deposits and, when it begins to evaporate, it leaves those minerals, along with any other pollutants that it was carrying, on the hard drive.

“So, when you turn on the drive, it starts up the motor and the read head gets stuck on the platter surface, sticking on these salts. And it causes a head crash,” says CBL’s Margeson.

If a computer has clearly suffered physical damage, therefore, it should not be turned on. Spinning up the motor and causing a head crash could trash your data once and for all.

If your business suffers extensive water damage, your first step should be to call a professional data-recovery company. And, depending on the type of damage, it is best not to wait too long.

“After hurricane Katrina, that wasn’t distilled water that those drives were floating in,” says Mark Baird, who was responsible in the period after Katrina for disc and tape recovery at DriveSavers.

But in such a catastrophic situation, retrieving and sending off hard drives for recovery is the last thing on people’s minds. In the case of Katrina, DriveSavers didn’t begin to see devices from the disaster for six to eight months afterward, he says. By that time, the drives had dried up and it was much harder to recover the data.

Consequently, it is imperative to avoid having the drive dry out. Put it in a Ziploc-style freezer bag to preserve the moisture levels, then get it to a professional data-recovery company as quickly as possible.

Never attempt to dry out water-damaged media by opening them or exposing them to heat such as that from a hair dryer, says Jim Reinert, senior director of software and services for data-recovery firm Ontrack Data Recovery in Minneapolis. IE