This morning as I was walking out of the house with my Chromebook in hand, I bumped into something and dropped the Chromebook, and the back pops out a little. I freak out and think that it's going to be broken, won't turn on, and I'll have to buy a new one. To my surprise, I turned it on and it seemed to be working. I don't think I'll have to buy a new one. The parts apparently still work. I turned it on and the OS Verification screen comes on as it always does (I have my Chromebook in Developer Mode so that I can boot a Ubuntu/Linux desktop), and I thought everything was fine. Then when I pressed CTRL+D as I always do to exit the OS Verification Screen and load the Chromebook, a new screen appeared to me that I've never seen before 
Chrome OS is missing or damaged.
!
Please insert a USB recovery stick.
Okay... so... in fact, it did break? It broke but it's not broken, I'm confused. What happened to my OS? I opened the back to see if anything was physically wrong with any of the parts but everything looks normal, so why isn't it loading like normal? Did the trauma of the impact just somehow erase EVERYTHING? Is my hard drive damaged somehow that I don't see? I don't understand how my computer is turning on, remembering that I'm in developer mode but all else is gone? I didn't know a hard drive was like an etch-a-sketch that you just have to shake a little to erase everything....
I have so much software and a lot of files that are extremely important to me on this laptop, and I don't have backup. Before I even consider doing a recovery, if I even can (I probably can't if my hard drive is damaged?), that erases all of my data that may or may not still be there, I would like to ask for information about what technically happened that makes my laptop not able to boot, and where did all of the data go? Everything looks normal on the inside. Is it possible to make it boot again with all of my sh** still there?
Answers are very much appreciated. Thank you!
