Retrospective Disaster Recovery

CompuMentor responded to the hurricane Katrina disaster in a number of ways. Including pulling on some volunteers to put together a Disaster Recovery Manual.

We aimed for speed in order to meet the immediate needs of small and medium nonprofits whose disaster recovery planning had been overwhelmed by the scale of what hit them. But now it's out there we want to release a second improved version.

We're focusing on correcting errors, filling gaps, redesigning/rewriting chapters that don't make as much sense as they should, and providing more resources.

While the catalyst for this was hurricane Katrina, it would be great if the manual covered all sorts of disaster recovery situations.

At the moment there's just the one big PDF to download and read through.

The table of contents:

INTRODUCTION....................................................................................2
PICKING UP THE PIECES..................................................................3
Triage..................................................................................................3
SafeTy First........................................................................................4
Hardware Recovery...........................................................................5
Network and Internet connections....................................................6
Data Recovery.................................................................................10
Moving Your Web site.....................................................................12
Dealing with Lost Passwords........................................................16
Claiming Insurance..........................................................................17
DONATED OR BORROWED TECHNOLOGY – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: ........18
Borrowed Technology.....................................................................18
Donated Technology.......................................................................19
Using Free Services........................................................................20
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................21
APPENDIX A
RETROSPECTIVE BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS....................22
APPENDIX B
TIPS FOR REVIVING BROKEN COMPUTERS YOURSELF.......41
General Tips.....................................................................................41
Techrepublic.com – tips from members........................................42
Microsoft XP.....................................................................................43
USEFUL LINKS...................................................................................45
APPENDIX C RESOURCE LISTS....................................................46
Data Recovery Firms.......................................................................46
Firewalls and Virus Protection........................................................47
Windows Administrator Password Reset Services......................48
Free/Inexpensive Technology Services for Nonporfits.................48
Sources of Skilled Help....................................................................49

Over the next week or so, I hope to get some of the content on to ConsultantCommons pages so that contributing is a little easier. In the meantime I'd welcome any thoughts on how this manual can be made more useful to nonprofits.