User blog comment:Freefalling Lilacs/I Might Be MIA for a Bit/@comment-1874924-20140512032908

I'm very sorry to hear that. I've lost plenty of pets in my day, although I was never as close to any of them as you appear to have been to your dog. I remember my mother taking a couple of those deaths pretty hard, though.

As for your data loss, I recall that Space had a similar trauma not too long ago. I keep trying to tell people about the importance of making regular backups--to flash drive, e-mail attachment, anything. Having something offsite is ideal, but at a minimum you should have stuff on a flash drive or an external hard drive. Onsite backups can also be lost in the event of fire or theft, but those misfortunes are far less common than simple mechanical failure. I know people tend to think that "it can't happen to me"; and believe me, I understand that inertia is a powerful force, but if you wait until disaster strikes, it's too late. But I thought that you had more FYE stuff on your private wiki than you apparently did. And I'm guessing that your (possibly) lost data includes your LTDI commentary, too.

If you hard drive is truly broken, all might not be lost. I understand that there are data recovery services specializing in retrieving data from damaged drives. I don't know what their services cost, though.