D'oh – lightning zapped my Macbook and the ADSL router last night. Removed hard disk from Macbook and it works in my parents' Windows machine, but can only access the Boot Camp partition. Does anyone know how to read an HFS partition in Windows?

Second stupid question – it's covered under the house insurance with NFU Mutual. I'm away for a week from Wednesday and *really* need the computer. Any guesses on whether they can be motivated into writing a cheque for the damn thing so I can get a quick replacement?

It's definitely knackered, when you plug the battery in the fans come on at full speed, but nothing else. Without the battery but the mains adapter in, nothing happens at all. Screen, LEDs etc blank. Even the little battery indicator doesn't do anything.

Check the small print of your policy…not 100% lightning is always covered due to 'act of god' clause blah blah.

Covered with NFU, fortunately – checked the policy documents earlier.

Go into your local NFU place on Monday and see what they can do, they're usually very good