Bittersweet Reunion

Happy New Year, everyone! :)

After 3 weeks in the ICU, Data, my MacBook, is finally home. Unfortunately, the reunion was bittersweet. Apparently, my old hard drive crashed beyond salvaging so they had to install a completely new one; Data was returned to me with major amnesia.
I spent the whole day yesterday trying to get as much back into him as i could with the help of Data's fraternal twin, Geordi, my iPod Video, and my Time Machine backups on my external drive.
All I can say is, thank god all my music and videos are in my iPod and I was able to get them back into my iTunes. I would have been beyond distraught - and possibly extremely violent - if I had lost all my music. Forget the pictures, its the music I live on.
Today I picked up where I left off and tried to get the youngest of my Mac babies, Luci, my iPhone, to contribute to Data's recuperation and discovered that amnesia, or at least partial amnesia (concussion?), is apparently contagious in gadgets. Ugh!!!
Long story short, Luci didn't recognize Data's new brain (HD) so he refused to sync with him until I performed a reset which pretty much erased his short term memory.
Gee-zeus!
Moral of the story? Backup, backup, backup!!!
I tell you; nothing is more frustrating than losing files, and I did lose a significant number.
External drives cost a lost but by golly are they a good investment.
Another good investment is extended warranty. I paid $130 on my AppleCare plan and it was worth every single cent.