Bugger.
Of course my primary hard drive would fail now that a backup external drive was bought and is slowly working it's way to me. It's the perversity of the universe - the computer saying "quick, fail now before he can back you up!" Yes, I can buy a new hard drive and hope to recover data from the primary drive, but.... That's $100 down, and god knows how much data is recoverable and how long it will all take!