It is sometimes possible to recover lost data if you, for example, suffer a hard drive failure, but often the best way to protect your valuable files is to use common sense.
But many people don't, according to Kroll Ontrack, a data recovery specialist, which has today published its top 10 list of data disasters that it encountered this year.
One man in Thailand found out the hard way that you shouldn't use insect repellent to rid an external hard drive of a colony of ants - not if you want to hang on to your precious data, anyway.
And closer to home, one Brit - a scientist no less - was so frustrated by the squeaking noise coming from his hard drive that he drilled through the casing and poured some oil in. The squeaking stopped, as did the hard drive.
"We're always fascinated by the extraordinary things people do to data that is often irreplaceable," said Phil Bridge, Managing Director at Kroll Ontrack UK.
However, both of these cases, along with several other daft tales, had a happy ending as the data initially thought to be lost was eventually recovered.
"What is even more astonishing, though, is the technology our engineers are continually developing to recover information and memories. We can often perform a successful recovery from what may seem to be a hopeless case ? proving that you should never give up," Bridge continued.
www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk