Job change?

Maybe I'm not too old to change jobs. Maybe I could become a computer scientist. That's a job where you spend most of your time testing video games, right? I guess I'd have to learn C; as advanced as computers are, you'd think they'd learn English! Hmmm...question: do I need to learn A and B first? Or can I jump straight to C? Fortunately, I alread know a bit about java. You've got your Ethiopian beans, your Central American beans, and of course, some of the best come from Hawaii! I studied a little calligraphy in my youth, so scripting should be easy. Did I leave out anything?

Data recovery question

A friend at work has a relatively new Hewlett Packard (about one year old), AMD 64 dual core system. Worked great until a week ago. Downloaded recommended update for MS SP3, computer crashed (continuously rebooted). This problem is well-documented on the web (click for info). After recovering core system with soft system recovery (not a full system recovery), as recommended in HP's trouble shooting guide, files were absent. He'd like to recover his data files and pictures -- the files should still be present on the hard drive.

Any recommendations for safe, inexpensive recovery?

EDIT: I may have found the solution for him. It seems that if you have an XP system with multiple user accounts set up, then a system recovery doesn't remove the old files, it just squirrels them away in an unreachable directory. When you are done with the recover process, you have to log in as the administrator and change the permissions on that directory, or the files inside it. I sent him the info, we'll see if it worked!