Avoiding loss of digital photos

There are certain recommendations you should be aware of to avoid losing your digital photographs due to a storage malfunction:

Never allow battery to drain to the point that uncommanded shutoff occurs. Make sure the battery is sufficiently charged before transferring images to your computer. In case the camera battery dies during data transfer, the data loss is likely to occur, similar to this example: the camera was low on battery and while attempting to take a video clip that the camera shut off. The camera now tells us that there are no images on the card.
Specifically, if you need to perform a recovery using a camera (rather than a dedicated card reader) to read the memory card, make sure the battery is fully charged before proceeding. During the recovery, monitor the charge level and abort the recovery if you suspect the battery won't last long enough.
Do not turn the camera off before it completes whatever it is doing. Specifically, do not turn the camera off before the image is completely written to the card. Most cameras would display a still thumbnail of the image on the LCD while the write is underway. You know that the write is finished when the display returns to normal operation.
Do not remove neither battery nor card when the camera is on or connected to the PC. Keep in mind that camera may enter a power saving mode and turn the display off, which is easy to mistake for a real "power off" state.
In case you discover a data loss, do not take any new shots using the affected memory card. This would irreversibly destroy whatever data may still be recoverable by image recovery software.