Recovering from HDD crash

Few days ago hard drive in the HP notebook used by our kid had died. I heard its last cries, but I did not understand what it meant. I decided to perform the usual maintenance, went upstairs and turned the PC on. Strange rattling noises followed, but PC still booted, and I was able to perform the usual set of tasks: cleaning up temp files, checking for virii and spyware, defragmenting space. Little was I aware to the fact that that was the last day the thing worked. Luckily, I had backups for most important files: photographs. I was trying to figure out what else could be lost on that dead Toshiba... Can only think of the not so extensive iTunes library (I spent only $60, maybe). Also, there would be our kid's homeworks that are of no importance now. Loads of software that will take weeks to fully restore. Sigh... did not know they're so unreliable.