salvage update

An update with my Mac situation:
The last scavenge attempt did not work. It finished up at around 6pm, I hooked up the new external drive, and started salvaging what I could. I transfered about a dozen files when a warning popped up that the temporary partition I was using with the data recovery software had run out of space. It wasn't long after that, the spinning beach ball appeared and the "application was not responding."

So, I was faced with reality. I could either try and erase more items from the temporary partition and go perform another 4 hour pass, or I could just cut my losses and just reinstall the OS. After about 10 minutes of deliberation, I said "What the $#@%" and decided to do a complete reinstall.
Great decision!
After everything was installed I looked at what I had salvaged and what I had left over from the August backup, and I have most everything I need. The only thing I really lost were MP3s, and in the big scheme of things, those are nothing. So I spent most of last night restoring my new OS install to its former state. In a lot of ways, this is better. I don't have as many applications installed and have a lot more space on my hard drive now. Also, I think I am going to try to return the external drive I purchased yesterday as I really have no need for it.

All in all, a relatively happy ending. I am sure as the weeks and months progress I will stumble across things that aren't present that I will need, but I can get them back. I think the more a person is in these types of situations, the more adaptable they become. And, at the end of the day, all of this stuff ... well ... it just doesn't matter as much as the personal relationships a person builds and maintains on a daily basis.

I'll be back this afternoon with so more of my story.