If it makes you feel any better, I managed to rip my whole CD collection onto the hard drive of one of my computers, and then copied it across to the other computer I have on my home network. About a month later the first hard disk failed, but fortunately I had a backup.

Hmm, I imagine that doesn't work either. I'm sorry you lost all your mp3 ripping work. Still, it does look like a good excuse to buy a DVD writer for backup purposes...