I am live and in person. The clean install and the moving of files has gone VERY well and it fixed my firewire port problem. So yeah! I’m back in business and I’m busily moving all my files either onto the clean and tidy HD, nice clean blank CDs or into the welcoming trash.
Hmmmmm this is my normal modus operandi for heavy cleaning of the household variety too — move everything in a room out to a different space. Throw some of it away. Put some of it into new storage. Put a small bit of it back into the regular spaces.
All of this is temporary of course, since things seem to migrate back together, or new stuff fills the voids of the tidy space. Just proof that nature abhors a vacuum.