I normally lurk but had to stick my head in here for a moment! I had a similar experience this summer. Computer crashed. I didn`t buy a new one, I hit F11 and did a system restore. But I still lost all my favorites and patterns. I learned from that to send myself an e-mail that contains the pattern link. Regardless of what happens to your computer, Yahoo (or whatever e-mail you use) saves all your e-mails on THEIR equipment. You can even set up a separate e-mail address just for this purpose!
I also crosstitch and most of those patterns are basically pictures on a grid. Those I save in a folder at Photobucket. Once again, they save all my pictures on THEIR end so regardless of what happens on my end, my stuff is safe.
Very sorry about your loss, hope this helps in the future.