I'm here again.
Bit the bullet and bought a newish computer--replaced the old one that just died (would boot about 1 out 5 attempts, sometimes with screwy video output, wasn't reporting correct amount of memory, losing drives, all sorts of problems.) I had just started a fanzine and the computer failed. However on one of the times it did boot, I backed up all of the hard drives to a Cd Rom, which I have safe. For once i have had a crash and not lost everything.