[RANT] I have just lost my hard drive!

A few days ago my external hard drive was brought crashing to the floor by a cat. It was my fault for stringing the power wire across a pathway but that doesnt matter now. It feels like I have lost a member of the family. The drive contained 120 gigs of info, including all of my music (10,000 songs! CDs all in England...time spent ripping and naming each track....AAaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!) all of the photos from my daughters first 4 years of life (1000s and 1000s! - She will kill us when she gets older!) and lots of other important stuff.

It is making beeping and grating noises and it is DEFINITELY knackered!

Having gotten over the initial grief we started to try to recover some data. First we called some of the "clean room" firms who can take the drive apart, rebuilt it with new parts and try to recover as much of the data as possible. This turned out to be a pricey option with no guarantee of success. They will inspect it for free, supply you with a list of recoverable files and a price, which could be anything from $700 to $2400.

MUSIC: You can get the music BACK off your iPod! So most of the music is saved.

PHOTOS: We sent lots to family with us being split across the Atlantic so most of the really superb photos will be on someones computer somewhere.

OTHER STUFF: Ah well, does good to have a good clear out every once in a while and I would rather leave it at that! I don't want to think about what I have lost.