Mad As Hell (And a Little Frightened, Too)

When my less than 10-week-old new PC tower suddenly died before Thanksgiving, suddenly telling me that "the Intel (R) 82579 LM Gigabit Network Connection adapter is experiencing driver- or hardware-related problems" after a 2 hour break in Sleep mode, I called the Geek Squad at Best Buy and spoke with three different people. Both the first and second person I spoke with said that they thought that the driver could be re-booted, and I should take it in to be serviced.  I asked if I should copy my files, and they said that the memory wouldn't be affected, so I wouldn't have to do it.  
   I had purchased my tower from Best Buy, and also purchased a 1-year repair and support contract.  The tower itself is a "refurbished" one, that had been built and sold by, Best Buy.  When the first one I ordered arrived, it would not even turn on; I took it back to Best Buy, and waited another 15 days before a replacement arrived.  The replacement, or second tower, was the dream PC that I wanted - very fast, and with double my old (10-year-old) PC's memory.   -   As a retired person, on Disability, and with a very limited income, my little "gifts" to myself cannot be expensive.  I have wanted to go home to Chincoteague Island every summer for a week or so, staying with relatives and friends, but have been unable to afford it for the past three years.  (Of course, I can save up for the plane tickets, and for my food, car rental and gas - it's that I have no credit card, and must agree to have an extra $500 to $750 charge placed on my debit card, which will be returned when the car is returned.  As I live paycheck to paycheck, saving up that amount, on top of everything else, is impossible....)  In any event, it's just a fact that I have very little to spend other than for every day items, so I was extremely happy to buy a refurbished PC tower at 1/3 the cost of a brand new tower with the same specifications.
    So, I took the PC tower to Best Buy on 15 November, and they said they'd do their 11-hour diagnostic scan and let me know.  Saturday, 16 November they called and said they'd have to send it off to the service center to be repaired, and it was covered under warranty.  I made very clear that I had not copied any of my files onto memory cards, and that I had files that I could not lose.  I asked if I should come pick up the tower, copy my files onto memory sticks, and then return it to the store for them to send it off for repairs.  I was assured that it wasn't necessary, as the memory would not be touched or affected in any way.  I also asked when I could expect to get my PC tower back; I was told it normally took about two weeks, but since it was the Holiday season, it might not be until Christmas or the New Year.
      I sent out e-mails to friends from one of the PCs at the public library about my computer woes, and a wonderful friend has loaned me her old laptop until my tower is returned.  The laptop is older, has an older no longer supported version of Windows, and the touchpad for moving the cursor is very oddball and extremely unwieldy.  It will suddenly change pages on me, without my touching anything, and I can't access several spots that I normally visit...  But I can blog and e-mail and post on Facebook, thankfully.
      I receive an e-mail from the Best Buy repair center that they had sent my PC back to the Best Buy store here in Boulder on Friday, 6 December.  I kept telling myself that I hadn't received a call from them because of all the Holiday packages backing up the deliveries, but I broke down today, and called Best Buy to ask about my PC Tower and where it is and when would I get it back.  The young man who answered my call asked for my name a second time, and then said, "Oh...  right...  the junked tower.  We're in the process of trying to copy all of your files right now.  We'll call you when we're finished doing that."
    I froze.  I have files of historic photos in those memory files, and more than 7,000 family tree entries, with pages of documentation constituting millions of keystrokes that I have collected over the past 40 years.  I have records from pet- and house-sitting in those files; I have documents in those files that have been scanned in; all of the photos that I have of my husband are in those files....  Now I want to kick my own ass for NOT copying those files before they sent my PC tower off to be repaired...
    I said, "Wait.  What do you mean 'junked tower?' I was told it was repairable."  The young man informed me that "UPS somehow damaged the tower" when it was shipped back to Best Buy.  I asked what he meant by "trying to copy" all of my files, and he said that he was saying what he meant - they were trying to copy all of my files from the now unrepairable tower.  And that once they had copied all my files, they'd have me come in, and choose a replacement tower, and then it would be a couple of days while they downloaded my current files to the new tower, and then I could come in and pick up the new replacement tower...  But they would call me once they finished copying my files from the damaged tower....
    I want to scream!!!!!!!!     Now it's another wait and see scenario - will I be offered a PC tower with the same specifications of the one I originally purchased - or will it be one that costs the same amount as I originally spent?  -  What the hell is going on with my PC tower?  -  I feel as if the Gods have abandoned me!