Crashing computer!!

I haven't been on here much lately. Besides the busyness of this time of year, my computer decided it would be a fun time to have a "thermal event", which evidently means a huge crash. We have school records on our computer, schoolwork on there, billing for my husband's business, all sorts of fun stuff! The ironic thing is that just a few days before the big meltdown I was talking to my husband about how I should really buy a flash memory thingy to back up our files. Well, I should have listened to that momentary whisper of reason, but I did not... Now I'm trying to piece together things from here and there and everywhere. Argggh!!!!