For many of us, our laptop is a handy tool at home and a vital part of our work lives. Losing the data on your laptop or notebook can be a potentially devastating experience. Luckily, in many situations your data can be recovered, provided you take the right steps and get it to a professional data recovery service, before your data is overwritten and lost forever.

The difficulty that you will have in recovering your data is related to the cause of the problem. As a general rule, software failures are generally easier to recover from than hardware failures. Damage to the actual hardware of the disk drive requires professional assistance and a lengthy process to recover your information. Software failures can often be fixed with data recovery programs, provided that you catch the problem early.

Here are some tips to follow that will decrease the risk of losing data from your laptop.

1. Protect your laptop. Their relative size and portability causes laptops to be much more prone to suffer physical damage than desktop computers. Laptops may seem to be sturdy, but they can be easily damaged by physical impact.

Try to prevent jarring and bumping your laptop if at all possible, this can damage the sensitive components of your hard drive.
Make sure to set up your laptop in a cool and dry place that is clean and as dust free as it can be. Use a dehumidifier in the room you most often use your laptop if it tends to be humid or damp.
If you suspect water damage to your laptop, immediately shut it down and remove all sources of power, including taking out the battery.
Store your laptop in a well padded laptop bag to give it extra protection when it’s being transported.

2. Keep your anti-virus software up to date. Install a good quality anti-virus program and run scans for virus on a regular basis. Computer viruses are a major cause of data loss and are relatively easy to pick up. Good anti-virus and spyware programs scan for unique items in the code of a virus and purge it from your computer.

3. Be aware of any unusual noises. If you hear strange sounds coming from your laptop, such as clicking or grinding sounds, shut your computer down and get it to a professional. Sounds such as these are very likely to indicate a hardware problem with your laptop’s hard drive. Continuing to use your laptop in this state may cause your data to be damaged beyond repair. Using software on a damaged hard drive can overwrite your files or may cause additional physical damage.

4. Make use of the Auto Save feature that comes with many applications. Many programs such as word processing programs come with auto save features that will automatically save your data every few minutes. The more frequently you save your data, the less likely it is to be lost.

5. Keep your battery well charged. If your battery runs down, your laptop may shut off quickly and cause you to lose information. If you are using your laptop for an extended period of time, it’s best to plug it so that you stay well-charged and don’t run into any problems.

6. Back up your data regularly. The importance of regularly backing up your important data can’t be overemphasized. Data loss emergencies can strike at any time and backing up your data on a regular basis is the only sure way to minimize the amount of information that is lost. Backing up your data can save you lost time, money and reduce the stress that comes with losing your files.

7. If you suffer data loss on your laptop, turn it off and stop using it until you have consulted a professional. This is standard advice for data loss on any computer. Continuing to use your laptop after data loss has occurred makes you more vulnerable to additional damage and makes it more likely that your data will be overwritten and lost for good. Don’t keep trying ‘experiments’ to see if you can recover your information, shut it down and take it to a reputable data recovery firm for evaluation and repair.