The Heartbreak that Keeps on Giving

By way of update, my usb drive (with the last 8 months of my life on it) died last week, much to my heartbreak. I asked my super computer-saavy boss to see if he could recover anything from it.

He couldn't.

I went back to my desk in tears. Almost literally. Someone did a Mexican Hat Dance on my heart. And my boss felt really bad--so bad that, surprisingly, he didn't even lecture me on how I shouldn't have relied soley on the most unreliable form of data storage.

The way he explained the problem was that everything is still there on the drive, but the roads to get to the files have disappeared, destroyed, eaten by a rabid, flesh-eating computer monster (you know, whatever does this kind of damage).

Apparently there are programs that will "re-pave the roads" but they are pricey. The ones he found was $60-ish and up. More tears may or may not have been involved at that point.

I thought I would take it to Best Buy to see if there was anything they could do--just as a second opinion. They told me that to even figure out what the problem was, it would cost me $250.

Yeah, right. Like I'm going to pay that!

I stared at the guy quite incredulously. He then said, and I quote, "Assuming that the tech guys can even do anything for the drive, it could cost $500-$1,000 and up to recover the files." Seriously?!?!

I said no thank you and the guy nicely said, "Have a nice day!" Not likely, I mumbled as I walked out. Then I suddenly wished I had my own Nerd Herd.

So I'm debating on what to do now. Do I just try to reconstruct what I'm missing (unlikely) or do I fork out the money and try to get it fix it myself. I'm sure not going to have Best Buy do it!