Recovered my hard disk (winxp) after a crash.

No one wants to be in this situation. It was just getting worse day by day. I had given up at some point when I saw light at the end of the tunnel (TestDisk and an USB enclosure) . I wanted to share the same with the others so that it might help them if not now atleast later.

It all started after I ordered a 1GB RAM (PNY was on deal - I missed the deal too by few days). Never mind, I went ahead on ordered the 1GB RAM after going back and forth on buying a new laptop (than ugrading my current one). It was a Thursday afternoon and I was happy after I clicked "Confirm Order". The RAM was shipped on Thursday night and I thought it would make it to me by Saturday. It did not ... my first disappointment. Then came Sunday. I wanted to put back the screws that I had removed before. So I shutdown my laptop, cleaned the dust and put back the screws. Started it again and then came the blue screen. Oh cmon its windows and thats usual. Lets restart. Boom again blue screen and it rebooted and again blue screen. By now I realized that something has gone really bad. So F8'ed on reboot and tried all options ... Windows will boot till Mup.sys and show me a blue screen. Its a sunday evening , I dont have another laptop and I dont have recovery cd either. My only hope was an usb enclosure that I had bought few months back (in Microcenter at Troy, MI).
I took the enclosure and my hdd to office. Connected it to my desktop. Ran chkdsk on it. At my office all USBs are write protected by winxp. Hence I was able to run chkdsk in read only mode. It showed couple of errors and stopped. Bad luck. Checked with my colleagues for win xp recovery cd. Well mine was toshiba and my colleagues had dell. But I wanted to try. So asked them to bring whatever they had. Reached home disappointed. RAM had still not reached too. Waited for couple of days and then got a dell bootable cd .... Luckily my disk drive still detects cd . Went to recovery console, ran chkdsk /p /r . It detected the same errors, took couple of hours and fixed them. After that I ran dir c:\. I got a wierd error message "Directory enumeration error". That was a shocker. What happ to all my data. I dont have a reinstall cd. Toshiba will only send me a dvd for $25. oh ho... RAM just reached my home :-( ...
(to be continued)

My little one is 2 1/2 months old now.

He is growing. 2 1/2 months. He resembles more of his mom now. It will be another month when I can hold him in my hands!

A Remarkable Week

Little hands and tiny feet, ... Shy, and cute, and so petite;... Little whimpers, little cries, ... Darling, little sparkling eyes; ... Outstretched fingers, wiggling toes; ...God, how can you love them so ... Children chase away the gloom, ... And sunshine fills most every room; ...

Last week has been a remarkable one. We had a baby boy - our first one.

More on this later...

Reservation is on .. SC Folks think logically

I just read that the SC of India had given nod to the 27% OBC quota.
This seems to be an unanimous decision too. Well what is the point ? You SC have unanimously decided to keep India forever in the backseat. Many don't realize that India is not what it was in 1947. Those who were deprived in those days are no more deprived of anything today. In fact its the reverse. SC has decided to keep the caste system alive. Its 60 years after independence and such an unthoughtful decision - its a shame.

SC WHY DONT YOU EVEN APPLY RESERVATION IN SPORTS - YOU CANT RIGHT? IF YOU WANT INDIA TO COMPETE THE SAME APPLIES TO EDUCATION TOO.

Michigan (MI) Drivers License

[ UPDATE: MI had reversed the law and started granting licenses for legal workers and students. Thanks MI and thanks to all who fought for it ]

Michigan state has enforced a new rule on (jan-21-08) that denies drivers licenses to Illegal Immigrants. Sounds good aint it. Hold on, while the move was to deny DL for illegal immigrants, it goes a bit further to deny licenses to ppl. who are in MI legally (H1 workers, L1 workers, Students). Thats surely not the way to go when you are taking steps to reform a state's economy. It is believed that a lot of workers have already started leaving MI because of the economy and the current slow down. There will only be more if this rule stays on. MI state folks, make it Michigan and not Mission Impossible.

People can voice their concern to the governor, secratory of state online by:

1) Filling out the form at http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168-21995-65331--,00.html
2) Send a mail to the SOS: secretary@michigan.gov

You can also write a postal mail (that is more effective I guess) to the governor at:
Governor Jennifer M. Granholm,
P.O. Box 30013,
Lansing, Michigan 48909

Sivaji Review

Saw Sivaji last weekend at PVR in Bangalore. I paid a premium price for the tickets just because it had Rajini in it and I could not wait any further. I was very eager from the moment my friend had the tickets confirmed. The hype that the media had generated and the reputation of the technicians involved in the film added to my expectations.

Now to the review ( I assure you that there are no spoilers in this). The film starts off very well (in typical Shankar style). But fails to keep us locked through the first half. Its pretty draggy, and you feel things are boring and overdone at certain places. The film gathers momentum towards the intermission, and the second half rushes through. The grandeur, colours and the SuperStar's makeup leaves you enthralled. When I came out of the theatre, I could see a disappointment on my friend's face. I too was not satisfied.

You can watch it only for the Super Star. Shankar has concentrated more on Picturisation and Cinematography. I guess some more work on the story line/Screenplay could have fulfilled fans like me. The screenplay lacks depth unlike Indian , Gentleman or Mudhalvan.

Folks, watch the film. But definitely NOT at a premium rate.


Strengths:

• Super Star
• Grandeur

Weakness:

• Dragging First Half
• Weak story line and screenplay

KPN Travels- Horrible Experience

I was travelling on KPN Executive Air Bus from Coimbatore to Bangalore yesterday, along with fellow passengers and a load of bed bugs. Yes you heard me right - BED BUGS. This particular bus (I think the registration no. was KA-01-A-4199) has loads of them in the last few rows. . Particularly the last row. I could not sleep all night as am alergic to their bites. After paying a heavy sum of Rs. 340/- this is what we get. I could not digest this. I guess Sharma Travels and Conti are much better. KPN used to be a good one. But off late they have become horrible. They are minting money but I really dont understand what stops them from maintenance.
KPN, you sure DONT Know Ppl Needs (in their language).

Folks, rethink if you are travelling with KPN. You might come home with some new friends and these friends, I tell you, are pretty hard to get away with once they are into your house.