FINALLY but .....

I've edited since original post. Those of you who have had hard drive crashes already know the utter frustration and despair when you realize everything is lost. Those of you don't: BACK UP YOUR DATA NOW!! Then pray that that works.

NEVER AGAIN!!  If your hard drive ever crashes just throw the computer away. Buy a new one with every program you need or ever wanted PREINSTALLED and have someone ELSE load all your previous data.

1) I've lost everything. The stuff my neighbor managed to retrieve is 99% unintelligible computer code.

2)  I tried but was unable to install new hard drive myself (couldn't get screws out), so gracious neighbor assisted. Numerous problems with software, hardware and peripherals!!  I've been unable to reinstall the financial data I have religiously backed up every time I've used that program. Just the thought of having to re-enter years worth of check register data is so daunting I can't bring myself to even start that horrendously long & tedious process. I've spent days and days in UTTER FRUSTRATION.. All those personal tweakings to Word and other programs  I have managed over  the past 20 years  have disappeared. I can't remember how I even did what I did to accomplish such. Among other things my speakers aren't working, and computer doesn't recognize ethernet card so I am without DSL for the time being and am back to dial-up. .I have FINALLY reconnected to the internet after 4 full weeks - but only at 28.8K. !!DARK AGES!!

Sadly. all my cross stitch patterns and designs are gone. I've reinstalled Pattern Maker but I would have to recreate everything from scratch. Don't know that after 20 years (the original shareware version came out about that long ago) I'm up do recharting anything, I have a 3 or 4 year old CD that I once used to back up all my data. I'm too fearful that it won't work either to even give it a try. At this point in time the amount of actual data I've got on this computer would comfortably fit on a 5-1/2 inch floppy. BTW, I still have those stored from my 1998 computer. Perhaps I need to install a 5-1/2 inch drive! Wonder if there are any left?