Best Buy is now trying to take off pictures from the old hard drive and putting them on a new external drive. But since the drive crashed, it may not work. But I have learned a huge lesson, BACK UP EVERYTHING!!! AND DO IT OFTEN!!! I was negligent because the computer was only 3 years old, never thought it would fail. But I had somehow picked up a malware virus which did the damage. The new virus protection on this one is Webroot -- supposed to block all malware as well as other virus programs. I don't understand the joy some idiots get from crashing someone's computer, they can't see me cry or hear my screams of anguish!