Windows 7 has been hosed

So I installed a release candidate on my box. It was fine until I did something that made Grub insert itself in a strange way (and I was not about to attempt to fix it by editing it's config files.) Then somehow my windows password got corrupted so I couldn't login (except for a guest account.)

I have a W7 repair disc but that was worthless. I don't know where the second purchased W7 disc for this one box is (no disc came with my original purchase. Is that right?) I will not be buying a third. Windows is forever in my rear view window. I'm going to make Linux work for me. My internet service provider doesn't do Linux, but I'm not having any problems in that area so far. Support is out the window though (well, I can work around that as well.)

I had my 750gb drive partitions into a 100gb C: for Windows 7 and 500GB for D: data with the rest for multiboot at some later time. I deleted the C: partition since I couldn't do anything with it (also as part of an attempt to reinstall windows until I found I couldn't.)

So now I was trying to figure out how to save my 500gb of data. I have a passport drive, but Linux doesn't see it. So I figured I'd burn some DVDs. Which I didn't have the right s/w to do. It had burner s/w installed, it just didn't work. When Mint 15rc fails, it doesn't kill the OS, just the app which no longer responds. No message. Nothing. I know Linux would allow me to kill a pid but for now I've just been rebooting. Anyway, I replaced Brasura with K3D (after going around and around about some missing codec dependencies) and Firefox with Chrome.

So I've lost data (many times in the last 30 years.) I have a passport drive that is mostly worthless to me (why doesn't the interface make the file system irrelevant?) The windows tools I've paid for over the years... oh well.

Now I can focus going forward on Linux and Android development. It's like learning a new language by living with people that do not speak English. Fun times.

Chrome on Linux isn't exactly the same but close enough.

Oh, and I no longer have to worry about retrieving data from my 500gb partition. Installing with the LVM option took care of that. It's gone.