No spare?
Not really meant to be a criticism but as somebody who is self employed, I find it strange that the chap didn't have some sort of backup plan like maybe another older laptop or something lying around given the 'criticalness' of the situation.
Sure, you might not be able to afford another 'top of the range' jobby but in the end you bought pretty much that anyway <shrug>
It's the old thing about backups - how much time and money can you afford to lose if your main machine goes down.