Data lost, data never regained

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.
-Marcus Aurelius

Some years back one of my friends had asked me what would be the one possession I'd grab if I had a choice before running in case of an emergency evacuation. And I'd instantly said my PC. Ever since music was made into mp3, I have stored every song that is close to my heart. Like an ant, I have diligently amassed a vast collection of mp3's and since I bought my SLR two years ago, I have carefully saved every picture that has captured a million unsaid words.

For a while, I remembered to save the photos onto CD's as well. But I reasoned to myself that the HDD was less than a couple of years old and I had eventually planned to get a backup drive and store all the data I needed.

Just two days ago, I woke up to see that my PC had crashed with a hard disk read error on it. Mechanically, I powered it off and turned it back on. Same error. Uh Oh, I tried the same procedure some 5-10 times before it sank into me that the disk was a goner. I tried to boot a couple of times with a boot disk without success. I was literally on the verge of tears. The very thought of losing all this data was enough to make me drive to the nearest store to have a professional take a look. After 2 days of attempting to restore my data, they gave up as well.

My PC is now back with a new hard disk and I have spent 2 days trying to install all the software I need but I really dont feel like logging into it. There's just no data. No music, no pictures, just nothing. I have to start afresh all over again and just the thought is depressing!!!