>Bleh. The aphorism about the shoemaker's kids comes to mind.
>
>Have you vowed to never let this happen again?

I did and it worked. I had a HD crash some years ago. Lost about 30% of data. Vowed to improve my backup system.

Had my second HD crash 5 months ago. Went to Best Buy and got a replacement drive and installed it, all in less than an hour. Took a while the same day to format and install OS and major apps and data. I'd say I recovered 99% from backups. No problem other than the hassle.

My system? CD's for permament external storage (photos, mp3, permanent data). A second hard drive on the same box with everything the main one has. I use Beyond Compare to synchronize them a couple of times a day. VSS for source code and also have all financial files (encrypted) copied to another box in my home LAN plus a ZIP drive (remember those?) to take out of the system. It works for me.