Stop in for a cup of coffee

No. There must have been a physical problem with the drive. The computer wouldn't boot and we started it in safe mode with a boot disc. No good. Data recovery is expensive to send the drive away and have it disassembled and each disc read and copied. I have back up's of most of the photo's I took. My library of downloaded photos is lost.
As long as you have your own stuff back up I can see why you wouldnt want to go overboard.
Check that out then. If you can boot off a floppy that might help. IDK. its been a long time since I've looked at it.