Possibly the worst non lethal thing that could happen to any digital artist that could happen, did. A few weeks ago, my motherboard was shorted out by yours truly when installing a new videocard. Though I wasnt worried at first, after my dad and I had gotten a new motherboard and I installed it, I could not get the activation key. Sadly I had an eMachines (yea laugh all you want), when I called Microsoft for my XP home edition key, I had to call EMachines. I was informed that I could not be given the activation key due to "security issues" (pirating software). I tried saving my work by adding a second hard drive to this computer but it failed (it tried to run off the 2nd hard drive, and I didnt want to do any harm to this ancient machine). As that failed and really no likely options I had my ENTIRE hard drive wiped...
Every peice of digital work is gone. All of my photoshop files are permanently erased. So all the artwork you see in my gallery are truly origionals and are all I have left of my work...
The good news is I have a completly custom Pc, so I wont have to deal with terrible service reps and automated voices. The only origional eMachines parts I have left are the HD, Tower case, and powersupply. I would never EVER recommend EVER getting an eMachine, even if they are cheap.