The great hard disk crash 2004

So computers are a labour saving device huh?
Then explain the lost hours of yesterday to me, please.
When I finally dragged myself up yesterday afternoon, I thought I might check my mail (not an unusual request, surely).. so fired up the ol' PC and sat there, ciggie in hand, waiting for it to boot up. Though my eyes were bleary (having just got up) and the room was smoky (forgot to open the window) I couldn't fail to notice that all was not well with the booting up of my PC.. rather than the Windows logo appearing I was presented with a single message:
NTLDR MISSING
No, I didn't know what it meant either.
Sod it, CTRL+ALT+DELETE.
Reboot.
NTLDR MISSING.
Bugger.
Oh well, one more reboot can't hurt.
NTLDR MISSING.
Hmm.. something is not right here.
My old PC used to have problems with it's BIOS and sometimes "forgot" about my Hard Drive..
So I checked the BIOS settings, showed it my hard drive..
Reboot.
NTLDR MISSING
Aww fuck..
The next ten minutes were spent trying to find my Windows XP CD.. -under which pile of junk is it?
Anyway, whack in the Windows XP CD and get the PC to boot from CD.
Hit "R" to get the Windows repair console..
Type "C:\"
Type "DIR"
Aww.. shit where the fuck have half my directories gone (the most noticeable absentee being the WINDOWS directory - never a good sign).
Anyway the next four hours were spent trying to use CHKDSK to repair whatever damage had been caused by the evil XP-killing fairies that had obviously switched on my PC overnight and FUBAR'd my hard drive.
(In all fairness CHKDSK did recover NTLDR - but the operating system was missing)...
Bugger, bugger, bugger..
So, to cut a long story short, I ended up reformatting (and repartitioning) my hard drive and re-installing XP. Which means I've lost everything, MP3s, movies, emails (all emails from the last four months anyway), the lot.. bugger, bugger, bugger.. So if you've sent me anything in the last four months via email (anything important anyway) it's gone, and if you emailed me for the first time in the last four months not only do I not have the mail but most likely I don't have your email address either.. sorry!
Anyway, at least I have a fresh XP installation, just gonna have to spend the rest of the week re-installing software now (Progress Bars! Yippeee!).
So, as I said, computers are a labour saving device huh?

+++ UPDATE +++
Well with some help from my housemate we've located the cause of the problem..
It would appear that my DVD-ROM was, to use a technical term, buggered.
It was shorting out (it wouldn't even work in his PC) and due to the fact it shared a connection to the motherboard with my HDD, that's what caused that to royally fuck up!
Found a solution too: Bin the DVD-ROM
Seem to be up and running A-Okay now, and seeing as I'd have to replace the DVD-ROM anyway, thought I'd spend a bit more a get a DVD writer instead (want a Pioneer DV108)!!