I am so depressed. I've been involved in information systems for twenty years. I should know better.

Last Sunday morning, the hard drive on my personal laptop kicked the mortal coil. I have been using a borrowed laptop to get my email, participate in this forum, and stay connected to my friends though my current favorite personals web site. This morning I took my laptop to The Nerd Patrol, who did a quick evaluation and gave a grim prognosis. They returned everything to me and charged me nothing for their trouble.

Photos, correspondence, records, music, addresses... Gone.

Gone, gone, gone.

Very little of it is backed up, but it's not like I wasn't aware of the risk.

The Nerd Patrol plugged my hard drive into one of their machines, which was able to detect that it was a hard drive, but could not get it to respond. We think the controller that moves the reader is shot, but I was told that this is very difficult and expensive to get around.

Of course, I would like another opinion, but I have no idea whom to turn to.

I'm hoping someone here has some suggestions.



Regards,
Rex in Desperation.