fickle technology
The computer was very polite when I booted it up this morning, and pretended like there was nothing wrong at all, so I took the opportunity to drag a metric shit-ton of files onto two flash drives, much in the same way that a person fleeing a house fire grabs things. That is to say, I think I got most of the family photos, but I may have snagged a bag or two of used cat litter along the way.