Very sad to hear that and also sad to hear that this may stop you from taking part at this year's compo.

And something like that happened to me too, but that was a long time ago when backup mediums were very expensive and there were no CD-writers around.

But since buying my first CD-Writer I make regular backups at least 3 or 4 times a week (while working on something, not working means no need for backup). I usually pack the source of my current project (using 7z, which compresses much better than even rar) and then write it onto a multi-session disk. That's easy to do (5 mins at the end of the day) and CDs are very cheap. In addition to that I also backup to my USB-stick (one that I don't take around with me) each day. So therefore even with a harddisk-crash and problems with the USB-stick I won't loose much progress.

I think especially for people that do coding each day (no matter how huge the project is) it's crucial to have a good backup-strategy to avoid such things happen.