not fair

My laptop's hard drive is thisclose to going to the hardware graveyard in the sky. I have spent all morning manually copying files to a USB stick. I tried rebooting the laptop but there are errors all over the place - there is no taskbar, no Start menu, no explorer, nothing. I can't even shut the laptop down. I am grateful that command line functions seem to be working so that I can rescue my files.

Hubby is currently saving system files for me - mostly licence keys for various software.

I know what my upcoming week will be like - buying/installing a new HD, installing the OS, installing software, etc. If you hear screams of anguish, it's just me. So much for Christmas knitting...