Re: PC Hard Drive Destroyed

I would file a small claims action; but how to you quantify the damages?

This is critical.

Re: PC Hard Drive Destroyed

As this is a college, I suspect that this is something of a "buyer beware" situation -- you are apparently getting computer and IT as part of your educational agreement. That agreement will control, and any reasonable regulations under the agreement. I suspect that the IT regulations state that the school IT department bears no responsibility for the loss of files, and assumes that you have backed your files up when you leave the computer for maintenance.

However, you can certainly file the suit and see what happens.

For what it's worth, I taught a few classes at a Boston institution, and I provided the following lack of sympathy to all of my students: "Back-up hard-drives cost under $100.00 for plenty of gigabytes of data, and can be connected via a USB port -- simple enough for a dimwitted lawyer like myself to operate. Whatever else you buy, consider one to be a reasonable educational expense. If your parents disagree, tell them Professor Lee is a maniac who means it when he says that he will not give extensions for work lost as a result of alleged failure to back up data, especially on a multi-week project. And tell them I absolutely have even less sympathy for the music and other recreational material you lost due to failure to back up."

The loss of your files should prompt you to find ways to protect your interests in this matter.