Well, I took away the following lesson from getting my computer to work again.
1) My local computer store is really great (they burnt me a recovery disk for free) 2) System refresh is a great way to clear off programs. 3) Microsoft support can't be relied on.
To keep it brief, both my laptop and my computer have stopped working within about a week of each other a week ago. I lost pretty much a full collateral chapter when my laptop went (screen is dead), and a little more (when I started rewriting it) when my desktop computer starting having trouble (error d0000452). I'm trying to get the later fixed, but no ETA as of yet. All I have now is a tiny
I had previously said that I would be returning to the normal update schedule once exams were over, but I had forgotten about an additional component of the course: Co-op related assignments and work. Collateral will resume weekly updates as of this Saturday.