Yeah, I did this... I mined 100BTC Solo on my CPU right around the time it first came out. Then it wasn't even worth $1. Multiple formats/rebuilds later it's worth over $1K/btc (yes that was an artificially inflated price, I know). sigh I could be student-debt free but it wasn't worth it for me to hold on to at the time...
I always just tell myself I would have probably got excited and sold at $2/BTC or when it hovered around $8. Such is life, no use wondering what might have been.
I hear you and you might have so it's at least semi-true. My own loss was a triple HD failure that cost almost a TB of software, research papers, photos, everything. I have none of my prior work as an INFOSEC pro. Three in a month when I was too broke from recession to replace them. So I feel the pain. ;)
One time I told that story to a Marine who instantly went PTSD. First time I met someone with similarly messed up HD loss. He had his slim, external laying on a table in maybe Iraq. Another Marine, round in the chamber, casually dropped his M16 on the table as he came in. It fired a burst right into the HD, leaving it unrecoverable. I said, "Damn. I'm at a loss for words." So, you ain't the only one haha.
Good start. Remember to hash and check the files regularly for bit rot. My three HD method kept three copies of the stuff while scripting the checks on the files and replacing broken ones with 2 out of 3 voter logic. Obviously, three HD's didn't work out so my next scheme will be like yours plus my bit rot solution when I'm not broke. ;)