Backing up

Last week my computer crashed. It wasn't the first time. Previously, I would reboot my computer from my operating disk then do a repair and it would fix it. I put the disk in, rebooted, then decided to go to bed. I knew I would wake up early and decided I would finish up then. I woke up in the middle of the night to find my 17yo son sitting at the computer. "What are you doing up" I questioned. He said he had some homework to do. When I questioned him how he got the computer to work, he said he just clicked "ready" on the screen. Ready? I mumbled sleepily. I don't remember ever having to click ready. I made him go to bed and decided to take a quick look. A quick look turned into an all nighter. Numerous calls were made to tech support. Bottom line , my computer was reformatted and all of my stuff was lost. The biggest loss of course was my pictures. I don't know that I will recover from that. One of my New Years goals was to backup my pictures and I had even started the process...{sigh} I hate life lessons like this.