No, Mike, you don't have to manually copy your html...
By "publish back to your hard drive" I mean that you should open FP, then
open your live website... click on File, then Open Web, and type in the url
of your live web (i.e.,
http://www.yourweb.com). You'll have to put in the
username and password that your host gave you. Now, click on File, then
Publish Web, and enter the name of a folder on your hard drive (browse to it
and/or create a new folder in the browse window). Now you have it on your
hard drive again and can work locally.
HTH, Victoria
P.S. Sorry to hear about your hard drive. That's always a bummer and few
folks are ever as backed-up as they'd like to be (me included).