vkaryl - 3:25 am on Jul 13, 2004 (gmt 0)

Jen, I think it's meaning that everything ON your hdd will be compromised in some way.

That's effectively, in some lexicons, destroying your hardware because many people don't quite get that the physical hdd is NOT the information contained upon it....

*shrug* Whether or not any of this is true or is just the pipedream of someone who is out to get MS, we ALL should use it as a wakeup call: if you don't do religious REDUNDANT backups, you NEED TO START NOW. If you already DO THAT, then you NEED TO DO MORE....

I'm the queen of the redundant backup. I have cds that are compilations of floppy disks clear back to 5 1/4" that reach back 20 years. I have multiple copies of same. I have multiple copies of same living here at home, as well as in the horse trailer, the travel trailer, and 5 DIFFERENT safe deposit boxes, 2 of which are in cities in other states, with another copy in my daughter's bank-box in Germany.

My imagination is PARAMOUNT. Those cds contain the fruits of 50 some years of IMAGINING and trying to formulate in words and other media what my imaginings look and feel and sound and taste like. What could replace that?

NOT ONE THING - not one DAMNED thing. Make backups folks. PLEASE. [Oy. Out there in left-offtopic-field again.... WHO'S on first? Sorry....]

[Edit - or, there's the actually possible exploit which overwrites your info on the drive with a virus-like series of instructions.... which DOES render your drive unusable. See above rant re backups.... but even at that, you should still be able to recover the drive itself for use.]