We reformatted the wrong harddrive.

I turned off my computer this morning, and plugged back in the other harddrive, having found some promising walk-throughs on getting Linux to read an NTFS-formatted drive. When I turned it back on... I didn't get my boot screen options. I got the Windows loading screen.
And not just the Windows screen - MY Windows screen, the bootskin I'd installed. When my Windows loaded - it had my own desktop image there (which should have been wiped out in the reformatting), it had the same folder on the desktop, the same Windows skin...

Apparently, for some bizarre reason, when Dad and I installed my F drive, we put it in the upper slot, not the lower? Or I don't even know, Tom and I just spent like two hours poking at the drives and the master/slave pins and the bus and lord knows what else. But basically, it appears our move of mega-paranoia in unplugging the drive we didn't want touched, led to that very drive we didn't want touched getting fucking WIPED.

Which, really, is pretty funny, now that I'm a little calmer. Even at the time of discovery, it was still kinda funny, I was almost laughing, while I was crying and clinging to Tom and my mind was racing figuring out what I'd lost.

...I lost all the cds I'd ripped. Which I can get back, I physically own all those cds...it's just 350+ cds worth. Most of which are back in North Chili. aaaaaaaaaaargh. I lost a couple of Photoshop files, but I think only a few, some crappy things that really weren't worth saving, a few sketches I'd worked on a bit, but that really weren't looking too hot (they were what helped me realise that using the Wacom tablet for drawings start-to-finish was hurting my drawing style), one file I'd sort of wanted to keep, just to showcase how well I could touch up a photo, from shitty off-color slightly-grainy scan, with a pimpley face, to something really professional looking, that I did up for a coworker. But, I've done things similar to that plenty, it's not that big a loss. I *did* lose a few major downloads, these lecture series I've been listening to the past month or so, but, those are still pretty heavily seeded via bit torrent, they'll be easy to get back.

After a good deal of poking at things, and, hopefully, *really* reformatting my C drive this time, Tom and I got it partially back. I can load into the fresh install of Windows now, it'll go to the right boot screen, and... well, it'll start to go into Ubuntu/Kubuntu. But it hangs up before it really gets anywhere, even in safe mode. So, when Tom gets home from class, he's goingto reinstall Linux for me. It shouldn't be too huge a deal, inasmuch as the partitioning's already set up and all, but, we hvae to redo EVERYTHING we just got working. Luckily it wasn't too much yet, and having just done it, it'll only take me like 10min to get the mp3s working again and things. The graphics drivers, I'm a little concerned about, inasmuch as I did so much random poking that I'm not sure I remember what all I did to make it work, but I *think* it was just setting it up to recognize my specific monitor, rather than fighting anymore with the graphics card. (nVidia graphics cards are a biiiitch to make work with Linux.)

I'd do more work on it myself today, but, Tom already knows how to do the install quickly and happily, and, I'm filling in for someone at work tonight, so I need to start getting myself showered and ready and things. Also, I was going to start getting my bike back in shape for the season today. (Especially since I have work Sunday morning, and the bus doesn't run weekend mornings, and I'm so tired of asking people for rides, I always feel so bad about it.)

On the bright side of things, it appears to be my sweet peas that have sprouted, and the plant's already about an inch and a half tall; it'll grow quickly, I know, so I'll have something blooming before too long, which's good. Tom is being very supportive of my computer issues, and was very reassuring about me not really having lost much. Also, he's got the latest media arts podcast (available at theartlab.net; I need to start getting copies of it again because they're always highly entertaining) somewhat editted, and played a clip for me this morning: He'd been talking about his capstone, talking about the style of the playing cards he's going to be using and all, and Howard (who's one of the major Media Arts superstars, the one everyone usually goes to for help) asked him to clarify the bit about having someone else work on the actual artwork for him. And Tom said he was having his girlfriend do it, 'because she's really good at Photoshop. Like I'm good at it, but she's *really* good, so I'm just like here, you do it!' And Howard said "Melissa's a wizard at Photoshop", and Eliot (who graduated the year before me, and is the main Media Arts professor now, and was a part of the universally-admired Tomorrow is Forever project) said, "So you might say she's a Photoshop ninja." And everyone agreed.

I AM A PHOTOSHOP NINJA!! This is the greatest thing ever. Any site or forum or anything that asks me for my position or occupation or whatever, that's so going to be it. (Also.. it gives me such a huge burst of self-confidence again, hearing that. Like I want to go make things again right this minute. I mean, the handful of things I've done lately, I really, really like, and it seems to come pretty easily now to get nice-looking stuff, but, it's an entirely different matter to know that someone else is impressed by it. Especially people whose work *I'm* very impressed by.) So, yay.