this is grim

This is what the casual observer might see when walking into my home office:
This is what I see:
When I tried to fire her up last night (not that I've EVER thought of my computer as a her -- in fact, its name is Oh-So-Spanky) there was this whirring, and then stinking and then clunk-a-chunk-a-clunking, and then me shutting it down as quickly as possible.

A brief prayer.
Restart.
Repeat the whirring and clunk-a-chunking.
Shut down.
Another brief prayer (to a different diety).
Restart.
Not much of anything.
Speed dial cousin Brian, Family Tech Guru.
He says, "Have you ever taken a computer apart before?"
Um, no, not really.

Proceed (blindly) with disassembly and removal of hard drive so that he can either a) tell me it's totally fine and will be accessible from the brand new computer I have to buy, or b) make me a disk of everything that's on there, in case it's too sick to function with a Computer Novice like yours truly.

Now, I've been thinking about getting a new computer for a while, or at least upgrading the one I already have. But last night has shown me that the hour is at hand for me to actually do it. (Especially because after I put everything back together, there seems to be an extra screw. Did I get this computer at Ikea??)

Your suggestions, recommendations and condolences are always welcome.