Thank you all for your thoughts and words regarding my little inconvenient episode.
Remus,I've tried opening the SKB file but to no avail. I'm new to these forums, who exactly is craigd and how do I get in touch with him?
Jakob, the disk was brand new. The only thing overwritten on it was the OS.
Julian, I will most certainly make additional backups all over the place from now on--- (data DVD's, External hard drives, other pc's, etc...).
Thanks again to all who cared...
ferrcorni