Quick! Somebody Get a Geek In Here!

I think I can breathe now... The past 8 days have been such a whirlwind that I have not had a moment to do much of anything I've *wanted* to do (like write on my blog).

About a week ago -- for no apparent reason -- my computer crashed. Yes, a week before my Elevate FINALS, my computer crashed.
And I mean, CRASHED. I could not even pull it up in "Safe Mode" -- never a good sign. I couldn't even get it to perform a System Recovery! My computer has been showing signs of *issues* for several months now, but since it was only 3 years old, I kept putting off getting it looked at.
BIG MISTAKE.
My CD-RW drive stopped working awhile back and I kept MEANING to buy a key card to store my backup information. Unfortunately, I never did.
EVEN BIGGER MISTAKE.

The lovely, well-paid folks at "Geek Squad" have determined that the crash was NOT caused by any virus or trojan or even by spyware. Fact is, they really don't know what caused my computer to stop responding! No lightening storm; No physical injury to the PC tower; No kool-aid on the keyboard. Nada.
THe only culprits I can see are one of two (or a combination of both): In the week before the crash, my computer was updated automatically with a Norton Internet Protection update and (the next day or so) with a Microsoft Windows update.
I'm pretty sure one (or both) of these caused the problem.
What I DON'T understand is why the damage was so extensive.

I took my PC in for data extraction, but they were not able to recover ANYTHING.
NOTHING.
Everything on my computer's hard drive is gone. Pictures, letters, important documents, tax info, all gone.
By the grace of God, Clay had suggested to me to email some of my more important documents to myself via my web-based email addresses. I last did this 2 days before the crash.

The thing I regret the most is the loss of pictures.
Sure, it's going to be a pain getting Quicken reloaded and caught up, and there are SO many important emails that I am now remembering and cringing that I never forwarded!
But, you live and learn.
The computer was a total loss, so "Merry Christmas to me:" I have a new computer!
I have heard NOTHING good about Windows Vista, but can I just say, (so far anyway) I LOVE IT! It works so much better than the old Windows XP -- and it's so much more chic. Very cool, almost-Mac'esque visual qualities.
True, I really wanted to buy a Mac Notebook, but I will wait for that.
Besides, it costs about $2,000 more than what I spent on this puppy. =)
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise?
In any event, at least I can get back to blogging now!