Of course, the computer breaks down on a Friday, and I don't get it to the tech shop until late in the day, and of course they're closed weekends and don't work, so I won't even know if any of my data is recoverable - all my photographs, all my email, all my music, all my programs, and all of everything else that was on my hard drive - until sometime Monday at the earliest.  All I can do in the meantime is wait.

Turns out, though. that spending a weekend without all that stuff isn't as difficult as I imagined it would be.