no one should ever feel the way that I feel now

At approximately 9:43 this morning, the good Dell tech supporter proclaimed any piece of data on my hard drive as good as gone. Gone!

I'm sure emotion will set in about this as soon as the shock wears off.

Long story short, ran XP installation which completed then crashed in the finalization phase due to a "fatal error" (and doesn't that alone frighten the bejeezus out of everyone else, too?) and will not be coerced to finish the process no matter how I cajole it, yet the only thing it can be compelled to do upon startup is begin again. No desktop, no way to quit the program, nothing.

My computer has been reduced to a three-thousand-dollar broken record.

( The only reason why I haven't spiraled into deep depression at the bottom of a bottle of amber liquid is... )

So, yes. At least that. *sigh* And of course, what they tell me I need is another XP installation disk (as the recovery disk for my old OS is no good because XP wiped it completely during installation) that could somehow be magically made to hocus-pocus XP into repairing and booting.

And I'll tell myself that's all that needs to happen, because the mere thought of the alternative really will drive me to drink.

this one's to Javier at Dell

Okay, so, yeah, everything that stood to be lost was lost. *lights a candle for her painstakingly organized bookmarks and fics* However, I need neither a new computer nor a full version of Microsoft XP, as it seemed at separate times this morning. Lesson learned: By upgrade, what they really mean is reformat. Why did no one tell me that I'd be losing everything no matter how successfully the OS change went? Anyway, I now have functionality again, a spiffy firewall and a perpetually licensed version of McAffee.

( Tech-savvy people, I'd love some input before I go any further about remedying anything. )

And not much else of anything.

Seriously, my computer is so naked I want to buy it booties or something equally cutesy and small to keep all its empty little folders and bare little menus from catching cold. And while starting over with a truly blank slate is somewhat thrilling, there is nothing in the way of programs besides Media Player, Movie Maker, and Wordpad. That's the height of my sophistication at moment present.

How can you help, you ask?

Well, you can contribute some meat to the anorexic bones of my born-again computer by recommending your choicest programs, favorite Web sites, most beloved fics (in pop, HP, LotRips, and vintage Star Trek) but for starters, a word processor would be fab (and, you know, necessary). iTunes covers music playing and CD burning, I have PhotoShop on a CD, and the rest - WinZip, Realplayer, Mozilla, HTML-Kit, WS FTP, AIM, Ad Aware, and Thunderbird - are to the best of my knowledge freeware. Thanks in advance.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, how are you going to make a movie of Goblet of Fire without the actor who plays Percy Weasley? No, really, what?!