I can see the sun again

Wheaton’s tech support can reach the files on one of my partitions (of two that I would have wanted: the one containing the Windows system and program files, and a generic one). They’re being copied to a more stable drive as we speak, and when the new computer arrives they will be delivered safely back into my hands.

What’s safe, previously thought lost:

Music that I’ve gotten in the past couple of weeks.

Several short homework papers.

A recently compiled collection of Chii pictures.

A 7 GB torrent with the download 99.8% finished.

The next four Shine comics!

What’s lost, for good:

An uncertain number of pictures of Jon Stewart (automatically dumped into My Pictures, and never sorted).

A few folders’ worth of family photos (ditto).

Most of my Paint Shop Pro textures.

All my bookmarks!

In short: things are worse than they could be, but better than they were; and I’m never going to leave any files out of my backups again, no matter where Windows wants to put them.