Frustration!!

My Mac Mini died on Friday----*poof*----just like that! I popped in my daughter's camera card into the printer to then pull off the photos she had on it from a great camping trip we took to Waldo Lake---for some reason it didn't show up on my computer desktop, so I thought---ok, I'll reboot. That was it! I tried to reboot & my Mac Mini just got stuck and soon was making this odd clicking/ticking/grinding noise. Dang! I rebooted over & over, turning it on & off, trying all the tricks the manual suggested, finally calling the local Apple store. They gave me one more thing to try---no luck, so I packed it up & popped down to see what their tech person had to say. She plugged it in & immediately said "oh, your hard drive is broken!" No Way?! The little arm that looks like a turntable arm supposedly had broken (so she assumed since she didn't pop open the hard drive to look). Ugh...that means if I want anything on it I need to pay oodles of $$ to retrieve it at some speciality recovery biz... I also need to buy a new hard drive and start all over! My Mac Mini is only 1 1/2 years old! I'm so frustrated!! Of course I didn't buy the Apple extended warranty... My oldest daughter bought an ipod (spendy one) and just after she'd had it for a year, it totally died too... What is with these Apple products? I thought the company was so reliable---it's why we decided to give their computers a try for a change---as the tech lady said tho---the hard drive isn't an apple product... ARGH! I'm now on my youngest daughter's Apple Macbook... brand new... I'm guessing she better invest in their Apple Care program (scam, scam, scam...) so she's not left high and dry in a year... Think I need to send this note to Apple... So, to wrap up----BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER TODAY!!! *sigh...