So my hard disk failed right before my birthday this year (Happy birthday to me~♪). I popped in new drive and was running again in no time--take that lousy HP customer service, trying to get me to purchase a new support plan!--but I wasn't able to recover any files from the failed disk, boo. I even tried freezing the drive and mounting it in Linux like a wannabe nerd, but I guess I'm not hardcore enough/the drive was too badly damaged.

Fortunately, I'd been saving most files to my external hard drive, particularly my giant music collection. But I did lose a few important things.

1.) My e-mail drafts. I saved a lot of hints to passwords in e-mail drafts to myself. Probably not the best or most secure way to do it, but anyway it's all gone now. Have no idea what my FAFSA pin is so it's going to be a pain applying for fin aid next year.

2.) Photos and vids from my bff's visit in October. I *always* save files from my camera to my external hd, no idea why I saved it to my desktop this time. :/ Lost a great photo of me at Pacific Beach in a bikini.

3.) Most importantly, I lost at least a third of the fic I wrote for Nanowrimo '07, and it was the best third! It was so good that I would periodically reread the ending of that fic and marvel at how well it turned out, and now it's gone. Including a really awesome sex scene *cough* ahem. I thought I'd saved it to my external hd, but when I went to look for it today it wasn't there, and the only copy that I e-mailed to myself for BUYND (back up your novel day) was at the 30k word mark just before things started to get good.

When I think of trying to rewrite it all, I know I would never be able to recapture the spirit. *sigh* Guess this means I'm going to have to retire it from the fanfic site where I'd been posting it.

In other news, I have a brand new factory sealed Toshiba Satellite L305-S5891 that I'm trying to sell for $500. My cousin was set to buy it but backed out at the last minute, so if I can sell it to someone I know rather than ebay it, that would be nice.