Just had a Blue Screen crash on my Win 7 machine

[gvstn]

3. I don't want to take away any excuses to upgrade from you.

And that is a rather tricky error because it can be pretty much anything. You did mention data loss as a concern so I am going to suggest doing a chkdsk /r to rule out a failing HDD.

You can right-click your C: drive in Computer and select Properties and then under the Tools tab hit Check Now. Tick both boxes and hit Start. It will schedule for next reboot. It will take at least a half hour for the exhaustive 4th stage so you may want to do it when you know you will have time to wait. Then pay attention to the results and look for any number above 0kb for files in bad sectors. That would indicate a problem with the HDD. You can also see the results of chkdsk in Power Shell if you miss them after running the check because you aren't watching--Power Shell can be accessed by typing power into the Start box and hitting enter. http://aspiringtech.blogspot.com/2012/03/using-powershell-to-retreive-chkdsk-log.html

I mention the chkdsk because besides possible driver problems, I also saw where failing HDD or bad SATA cable or cable connection could cause that error and it is a simple test to run.