1. Pick up the pieces — carefully. If your hardware can be located, there might be a way to recover the data on it. "We have helped several clients recover data by simply cooling off a hard drive in a freezer," says Ann Westerheim, an IT consultant for small businesses in Boston. So when you come back to your office after the disaster, don't write off the wreckage as a total loss. Data has been recovered from all kinds of damaged computers, including those dropped, burned, or otherwise exposed to the elements. Bottom line: if it's still intact, there's still hope.

2. Get professional help. You may be tempted to throw that overheated hard drive in the freezer, like Westerheim did. But like they say — kids, don't try this at home. Instead, consider hiring a so-called "first responder" who can help with the recovery. "If your system is damaged but available, there are a number of value-added forensic computer service providers that can assist with data recovery," says Lawrence Steffann, the president Data Protection Solutions, a data protection technology provider. He and other experts suggest choosing this pro carefully. Your entire company's data will be in this person's hands.

3. Invest in a backup system if you haven't already done it. Don't wait until the next catastrophe to get your act together. Even as you pick up the pieces from this disaster, it's not too early to start planning for the next one (which hopefully will never come). The biggest mistake small business owners make is not adequately backing up their data, says David Luft, senior vice president for product development at Computer Associates' SMB program office. "There are simple steps that can be taken when developing and implementing a backup plan," he says. His company's research has shown that more than half of all companies in the United States don't have a business continuance plan to prevent data loss. Make sure you double up, selecting either multiple onsite data backup systems or multiple online systems — and preferably one of each. That way, if one of your backups fails, you'll have another to fall back on.

4. Make a disaster recovery plan. Even if your data is backed up, what good is that information if you can't get it back quickly and resume your business? Rob Peglar, the vice president of technical solutions for Xiotech, a storage networking company in Eden Prairie, Minn., says businesses must plan for the worst. At a bare minimum, a data-recovery plan would ensure redundancy of all technologies involved in securing access to customer record data. "This is vital to ensure against practices and procedures that might be construed as regulatory violations or threats to customer privacy, triggering potential liability and practice litigation," he says. In other words, be sure that you recover not only the data you need to keep you in business, but also the data you need to keep someone from putting you out of business.

5. Test your plans — repeatedly. "All of the effort you put into backing up your data can be for naught if you are not capturing the information properly," says Thomas Wilson, a managing partner for the Orlando forensic accounting firm Matson, Driscoll & Damico. So you can have the best backup system and a top-notch disaster recovery plan, but if you don't run a regular drill to make sure it all works, it may not work when you need it. And then you're no better off than the survivors combing through wreckage and thumbing through the yellow pages for the number of the nearest data-recovery specialist.