Don't Let Data Loss Ruin Your Holidays: Critical Digital Photo Housekeeping Pointers from Ontrack Data Recovery

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 30, 2004--This holiday season, chances are you'll be snapping up holiday memories using a digital camera instead of a traditional camera. According to the Photo Marketing Association(a), digital cameras outsold traditional cameras for the first time ever in 2003 and digital camera penetration is expected to top 42 percent of households by the end of 2004. With digital cameras predicted to be among the hottest-selling products again this holiday season, more folks will be pointing, clicking and downloading to computers and digital printers than ever before.

With that in mind, there are several critical photo housekeeping pointers you'll need to consider since, unlike the foolproof methods for saving and protecting traditional film photographs (i.e. the trusty old shoebox), any kind of digital storage - be it hard disks, CD-ROM, DVD or tapes - can and will eventually fail. The following tips from Ontrack Data Recovery, the world's largest data recovery company, will help keep your memories safe and the holiday spirit alive:

1. Download as you go - Worse than losing or damaging your digital camera is also losing every last image you took on your family's trip home for the holidays. Periodically (once a month) download new photos to your computer;

2. Back up, back up, back up - Even if you have a monster hard drive, make secondary backups on DVD, CD-ROM or other medium for extra safety of precious images;

3. Divide and conquer - Keep secondary backup copies in a different location from your primary backup. Preferably, these backups should be located away from your computer to protect against fire/flood;

4. View it or lose it - Check your digital photos at least once a year to be sure they're still readable. Stay current with technology so if in a few years your old computer, camera or media become discontinued or obsolete, you can transfer your photos to newer media before it breaks down;

5. Be kind to media - Storage media is small and fragile, so keep it stored in closed (zippered) compartments that also protect it from bending, flexing or crushing (i.e. your back pants pocket is not a good place to hold extra storage!);

6. Lock and go - If your removable camera media has a "write protect switch," make certain to enable the switch on your media as soon as you remove it from your camera. If your camera allows you to write protect/lock individual photos, this too will provide further safety from accidental data loss;

And perhaps most importantly...

7. You can depend on data recovery - Have the name, Web site and telephone number of a reliable and respected data recovery company on hand. In the event of some form of data meltdown, experts from an experienced data recovery company will be the only thing standing between you and having to tell your children there aren't any memories of your 2004 holidays because your hard drive crashed!

"Digital cameras represent the next phase of tracking the memories of our personal lives," said Jim Reinert, senior director of Software and Services for Ontrack Data Recovery. "Losing your digital camera photos is tantamount to losing a photo album in a fire - the difference is with the advances made in data recovery, there is no need for your memories to be lost."

Ontrack has performed digital photo recoveries for everyone from new parents that lost precious photos of their child's first moments to Polish explorer Krystof Wielicki's shots from an expedition in the Himalayas. Ontrack has years of experience recovering digital photos in their labs using state-of-the-art technology or through providing easy-to-use recovery software options for do-it-yourselfers.

For further information about data recovery please call Ontrack at 1-800-872-2599 or visit the website at www.ontrack.com.

About Ontrack Data Recovery

Ontrack Data Recovery (www.ontrack.com) is the largest, most experienced and technologically advanced provider of data recovery products and services worldwide. Ontrack is able to recover lost or corrupted data from virtually all operating systems and types of storage devices through its do-it-yourself, remote and in-lab capabilities, using its hundreds of proprietary tools and techniques. Ontrack Data Recovery is a brand name of Kroll Ontrack Inc., the technology services subsidiary of Kroll Inc., the global risk consulting company.