I think my damned hard drive crashed. I de-installed my old virus protection programm, McAffee, and installed Antivir in its stead, as well as ZoneAlarm as a firewall (both is what my brother's been advising me to do for some time now). ZoneAlarm didn't last very long since it didn't like eMule, so I de-installed it. Then, all of a sudden, almost all the data on my D:\ drive got scrambled to something along the lines of "$§~]&/$($%$", and I can access it no longer. I can't burn SVCDs, either, which doesn't make any sense since Nero is on my C:\ drive. Argh. And I cannot reach the IT guy from work since he's in the BAO South Asia and surely preoccupied with more important things than my crashed computer.

This may well mean a new computer. I'm so glad my old D:\ drive is still at my parents, untouched, and that I transferred all my important data (read: stories) to my laptop right before Christmas. So this'll kill "only" all the .mpg and .avi files I haven't watched so far. Plus all stories I downloaded since 22.12.

It could be worse, I guess. Of course it also could be very much better.

Now... does anyone in Germany know
a) an IT service that might recover my data?
b) a computer shop that builds a new PC according to one's wishes? I want to use my new DVD burner in the new computer, if I have to buy one.

I so didn't need this right now. This is the last time I change anything in this PC, and also the last time I listen to any computer suggestions coming from my brother.

Fucking hell