This is one of the main reasons I have nothing of importance on my C drive, I have all my runtimes and work files on my D, E, and F drives. I'm a total nerd and have gone thru this hassle a few times in the past, thankfully before I got into 3D modeling and had nothing of much imortance to replace, only music and pics.

Quote - Did you clean the old thermal paste/pad from the CPU and apply new?

I was gonna ask that as well when I read the post, but refrained when i saw you asked the good question. I build all my PC's from the ground up, so I know what to do and what not to do, learned the hard way in a few cases. But those years are way behind me. But, my "golden rule" is to always have your important stuff on separate drives/partitions other than your C drive, which when all hell breaks loose, you have to reformat. And also, backing up your stuff when you can doesn't hurt either :o)

I am sorry it happened to you and I totally sympathize.

                                                                                                                    

Poser 10

Octane Render

Wings 3D