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Archive for October, 2008

He’ll make a difference

30 Oct

Barack Obama will become the next President of the United States of America. If he doesn’t, there is something terribly wrong with the electoral system in the US. From what I can see, there’s no reason for him not to be voted in. John McCain doesn’t know what he’s doing. Sarah Palin doesn’t seem like she knows what she’s doing either. Clearly, Obama is the right choice for change.

The media is covering Obama like he’s the only man on earth. He’s on every television station, in every blog entry and his name has become a household name. There’s probably no one on this continent that doesn’t know who Barack Obama is.

I haven’t been following the US election too closely but I hear that he’s making a difference. He’s the type of guy who grew up the way most of us grew up so he understands things from our point of views. He wasn’t rich and didn’t have thing paid for. He had to work to get to where he is now. He knows what it’s like to grow up with a single mom. He understands that middle class families needs financial assistance in order to make ends meet. He’s opening up doors and listening to the people.

I’ve never even heard of Obama before this Presidential election. Obama came out of nowhere and is making a name for himself. He’s reaching out to people and getting in touch with them in a personal level. You can’t make promises to people without know who they are and what their needs are. I’m sure that the middle class people make up the majority of the people in the US so during this economical crisis, they are the ones who needs help. Not the oil companies, not the pharmaceutical companies and not the companies who are making millions.

The ones who needs help to make it through these hard times are the ones who are working and making next to nothing. Corporations are already making a profit so they can manage on their own. That whole bailout plan seemed like a load of crock to me. Those companies are supposed to be experts in their fields so there’s no reason for them not to foresee a down fall. I don’t quite understand why tax payers have to help out corporations who aren’t even willing to help the tax payers when they need help. Tax payers are helping to bail out companies who they are in debt to. Meanwhile, these companies are charging the tax payers high interest rates with no end in sight.

America cannot afford to make the same mistake that they made last year by re-electing Bush. America needs “change” and Obama is the right man for the job. I don’t care what any Republican say about him, he’s out there to make a difference. Everything that the US government has been doing for the last eight years is clearly not working. Obama is ready to step up to do something about it. It doesn’t matter if they think he’s too inexperience to be president. He has enough experience to know what the people want. What kind of experience do you need? If Bush could be elected into office, I’m sure that Obama can manage the job and possibly do better. The people don’t need another Bush. The people need a leader and one who hasn’t been tainted by political corruption. I believe that when he’s elected, the government will once again be “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

 
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Posted in General

 

Autumn leaves

19 Oct

1/160sec | f6.3 | 18mm

 
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Posted in Nature

 

OB midterm exam

17 Oct

I’ve just gotten home from writing my Organizational Behaviour midterm and I’m exhausted. Never before has an exam taken so much out of me. I had three hours to complete the exam and I thought that I would need the full three hours but after two hours, I was done.

I was nervous leading up to this exam. Jenn ensured me that I would do fine on the exam but I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t study during the days before because I was preoccupied with stuff so everything that I was reading wasn’t sticking. I had to read over everything that I’ve read over and over again. I would spend hours on one chapter and have nothing memorized. It was frustrating that I couldn’t remember anything.

I’ve always had a hard time studying for exams because I need to be in the right environment. I can’t study at home because there are too many distractions. I can’t study at a library because it’s too quiet. I need something with a little bit of background noise but not loud enough to be a distraction. The best place for me was my desk at work. The fan was on so there was enough noise but it was that long. Security would make their way around every now and then so it keeps me alert. I managed to get a few chapters studied at work but not enough to make me feel confident that I would do well on the exam.

On the day of the exam, I was still studying. I left work early in hopes of getting in that last bit. Even minutes before the exam started I was studying. One of my classmates told me to give it up but I told him that the fresher the information is in my head, the better my chances are. I believed it to be true and it was.

As I started the exam, I skipped a few questions because I was trying to answer the question that I knew the answers to. That way, I can worry about the other questions later. Within the first few minutes, I had already gone through the whole exam and answered all of the questions that I knew to be correct. After that, I simply went back and attempted to answer the remaining questions. Multiple choice questions are fairly easy if you have an idea which answer could potentially be correct. After that, it’s a matter of elimination.

The short answer and essay question couldn’t be answer through the process of elimination and it was the cause of most of my worries. I didn’t know how to answer some of them but I think that I managed to do pretty well in it. Before answering those questions, I made sure to have the multiple choice questions completed. My strategy was to use the multiple choice question as a reference for the short answer questions. After flipping back and forth a few times, I managed to find a few multiple choice questions that could help me with the short answer questions.

I was give eight short answer questions but I only had to answer six of them. Luckily, I found the answers to five of them on the previous pages. The last one questions I had to answer by memory. I didn’t answer it fully but I’m hoping to get half of the allot marks for it. At least, that’s better than nothing.

The last section of the exam required me to write an essay. As I think about it now, I don’t think I wrote the answer in essay format. I recall writing down two paragraphs when an essay should have an introductory paragraph, a body and a conclusion. I hope that I wrote enough to cover the major parts of the questions.

I’m relieved that I’m all done with this exam but I still have another one to go, my networking exam. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about a final exam because I have to submit a term paper for the final. I won’t find out the results of the exam for at least a couple of weeks so I’ll be praying that I did well. I forgot how much this exam is worth towards the final mark but I hope that I pass with a decent mark.

 
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Posted in Education

 

Everyday things

15 Oct

I grew up in a family of five boys. I don’t think that we were a rich family but my parents had enough money to make it by. Having to worry about feed five boys is probably a hard feat to undertake but my parents did a good job. I thought that we had it bad when I was younger but I can see how that we had it pretty good.

Poverty is something that is very saddening to see. It’s hard not to understand how some people managed to get that low. I would hate to be in their position and living out on the streets. As much as I’d like to help some of them out, it’s doubtful that my contribution will be put to good use.

When I was in Hong Kong in February, I saw probably one of the saddest things I’ve seen in my life. I was walking around in Jordan with Jenn when we came to a hill. At the bottom of the hill is a marketplace filled with shoppers. At the top of the hill was a mother and her child sitting in the middle of the street. If it was just the mother, I’d feel a little sympathetic but to see her and her child sitting there almost got me choked up.

Seeing the mother and her child made me realized how much for granted I’ve taken things. I have little appreciation for things that I use every day. They’re so readily available to me that I don’t think twice before taken advantage of things. But then you go around and see things like this and you wonder how some people make it to the next day. I’m sure that they have to eat and with no money, how do you do that? If they can live like that, everyone else can probably do the same. People have to eat in order to survive and without the proper nutrition you’ll probably die.

People who live in poverty need very little to survive. I assume that their bodies cope with the lack of food and it makes due with what they have. Sometimes, I‘ll see homeless people walking around with a loaf of bread. If I had nothing to eat but bread, I’d be pretty hungry but then again, my body is used to consume food on a schedule. I usually have lunch at 12:00pm so if I don’t eat right at 12:00pm, my body will start to complain and my stomach will growl.

It’s saddening to see homeless people around the city. Canada is not a third world country so sights like that should be seen. When I get approached by pan handlers, a part of me wants to help them but the other part of me doesn’t trust their story. Most of them will come up to me and tell me a very sad and touching story and it makes me sympathize with them but I know that it’s bullshit.

Today, I made my stop at the gas station for coffee and newspaper. When I pulled into the parking lot, there was a car parked in the spot where I usually parked. I got out of the car and the guy greeted me and told me about his predicament. Here’s his story:

Could you help us out? We’re trying to get back to Woodstock and we’ve been stranded here for a few days. Our car isn’t work too well and we’ve asked a guy to fix it. I gave him the money and he said that he was going to go get his tools but he hasn’t come back since. Now we have no money for gas and we can’t go anywhere. I’m trying to get my dad home and my daughter hasn’t seen her fifteen month old baby in a couple of days. If you have anything to help us, we would appreciate it.

I told him that I’m sorry he’s in this mess but there’s nothing that I could do to help him out. I’ve got my own bills to pay and I don’t have any extra money to give them. I’ve got to put gas in my car to get me places too. I know that maybe $5 could probably help them but there’s no way they’ll be able to get to Woodstock with $5 of gas.

Another story of a homeless person trying to scam some money out of me was when I was approached on the street by a guy holding flowers. I know this guy from working as security at the library so whatever he has to say is probably a lie. He may look and sound sincere but his attempt to get my money is futile.

Listen man, can you help me out? My wife is sick in the Toronto hospital and I just need enough money for bus fare to get me back there. It’s a real emergency and I want to be by her side to make sure she’s okay. I’ve got her these flowers but I’m a little short for bus fare. Can you help me out here?

I had to decline this guy as well because he seemed a bit shady. Obviously, he doesn’t have his priority straight if he went and bought the flowers first before buying a bus ticket to see his dear wife who is suffering in the hospital. I’m sure his wife would appreciate the flowers if he made it there but I think she’d appreciate it more if he was there in person.

The thing about these people is that they’ll continue to do this day after day until they get something. There’s one guy that’s going around town with the same story and I’m pretty sure that he could have walked to where he was going a lot faster than asking people for money. For at least two years, this guy has been trying to get to St. Catherines to see his family. He bought a one way ticket to Hamilton and somehow didn’t have enough money to get back. I’m sorry but that his lost.

Another lady seems to always have an emergency with her dad getting hurt and getting into the hospital. She’ll come up to you and start crying and saying that she needs $20 to get to Toronto because her dad is in the hospital. Of course, the timing is bad because she doesn’t get paid until Friday and she needs to leave tonight. The first time I saw her, I thought it was real but then I saw her again when I was at the restaurant. She walked up the stairs and gave the same story of her dad and pay date. Even though she gave me this story a long time ago, I still remember it.

What I don’t quite understand is why people should resort to lying in order to get financial assistance. I know that some of them are wasting money on alcohol and stuff but some of them actually need it for good. I’ve seen a few homeless people go to the library and actually make use of their time. How they got in their current predicament is beyond me but I think that the government should do something about it. If they are doing something about it now, I think they should do a better job at it. They shouldn’t just help them so that they get a free pass on life. They should do something to help the homeless people get a job. Like the old saying goes, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

 
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Posted in Life

 

Verification

13 Oct

I think that there are some companies out there that don’t quite understand the reason for security. It’s no wonder identity can be stolen so easily. I had a few incidents where I need to change some information on my account and some of their verification process might be slightly flawed. They aren’t aware of the wealth of information that is available, all thanks to the internet.

Last week, I made plans to some the mailing address of Jenn’s cell phone bill and change my PIN with HSBC. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to have those information changed. I questioned the employee that I was speaking with but they didn’t have an answer that I found acceptable.

First I called Rogers to have the billing address change to my current house. Jenn’s mom was using her cell phone here because she didn’t have to pay long distance charges when calling Jenn’s brother. When this month’s invoice came in, Jenn’s brother’s cell phone number was designated as being in Toronto so that stopped the free cell phone to cell phone calls.

Jenn’s mom didn’t want to use the phone anymore if she has to pay so they gave the SIM card back to me and asked that I change the billing address to the house. I called up Rogers and told them who I was and that I’m an authorized user on the account. The representative informed me that I had authorization to change the billing address but in order to do that I need to confirm the current address. I know the address of Jenn’s mom but I didn’t know their postal code. I wasn’t sure why they needed that much since I confirmed the street address already.

The representative told me that I cannot go any further unless I provide her with the postal code. I told her to wait a few seconds while I search for that information. I launched Firefox and surfed on over to Canada Post’s website and did a search for the postal code. I typed in the necessary information and it provided me with the postal code, which I read out to the representative.

As for the PIN to my HSBC debit card, two pieces of photo ID was not good enough. I had to provide them with my SIN card and my birth certificate. I why my driver’s license and health card wasn’t accepted and the clerk told me that I need to use my SIN and my birth certificate because those were the documents that I used to open the account. I pointed out that my driver’s license should be sufficient since I need my SIN and my birth certificate to obtain my driver’s license. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t accept any of the ID that I presented her with.

I went quiet for a while and she asked if I knew my Social Insurance Number. I told her that I did and she asked me to write it down. She wasn’t will to accept my driver’s license but she was willing to accept a piece of paper with some numbers on it. Once she verified that the SIN matched the record on the computer she was able to accept my driver’s license.

That process doesn’t sound right. There are a lot of information available on anyone as long as you know their name. After you get their name, a simple Google search will return just about any basic information about that person. The simple address change with Roger isn’t that big of a deal but the PIN for my debit card is. If someone was able to change the PIN that easily, they have access the $3.25 that I have in the bank. If someone takes that money, I’d be pissed!

 
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Posted in Rants

 

Your topic is approved

11 Oct

At the beginning of the semester, my professor informed the class that we had to select a topic for our term paper. For the past few weeks, it has taken me a while to think about what to write about. I wasn’t sure what a good topic would be. On top of that, it had to be something that I can talk a lot about.

My friend, Socheat gave me the idea of what to write about. He suggested that I wrote about the change in technology and how employees adapt to it. It sounded like a good topic because in the I.T. industry there are a lot of changes. There are updates coming out every day, new strands of computer viruses and updates for the definition. It sounded like it could be something that I write about a lot. The requirement is to write a 2,500 word paper on the topic which is about eight pages double spaced. I don’t have a problem writing a thousand words so doubling that shouldn’t be a problem either. It’s about the same amount of words as two blog entries.

I searched my text book to see if I can use any reference from it. I couldn’t just write a paper based on my own experience. We have to include the work of others and work that have been proven to work. The text book appeared to have a lot of information in it. I just have to find the right information relating to my topic. Luckily, chapter 17 is all about change so I’ve twenty pages worth of reference.

When I proposed the topic to my professor he responded with the following:

I like your idea Don. Perhaps you could explore under what circumstances technology is introduced successfully and where it is bungled. That’s what Chapter 17 is about. How to implement change effectively.

I could write a paper about the topic that I originally started with but going with an idea that the professor elaborated on would mean more marks. It’s going to be a challenge but I think that I’m up for it. I’ve written so much about topics that I’m comfortable writing about so going a little further and writing about a topic that someone else suggested might turn out to be more rewarding. If I get a good mark, I just right post my paper on here so everyone can read it and mark it.

 
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Posted in Education

 

Project Euler

10 Oct

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a line of code and I’m a little out of practice. With programming, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. I haven’t done anything major or minor for that matter and I’m starting to forget how to even start writing code. For a while, I forgot how to start off a line of code in PHP.

I came across a site called Project Euler which is a site that will provides problems for mathematicians and programmers to solve. I was reading the Daily WTF and there was a little post about asking an interviewee about a problem that he had to solve. I’m not sure what the guy was thinking but his answer was rather long. There are betters ways to simplify the code and apparently, he didn’t know about it. I haven’t given that particular problem a go yet but I’ll get to it when I get there.

Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems.

The motivation for starting Project Euler, and its continuation, is to provide a platform for the inquiring mind to delve into unfamiliar areas and learn new concepts in a fun and recreational context.

I’ve decided that in order to keep my brain functioning and my programming skills sharp, I’ll be writing my own code to solve each problem. I’ll post my results here along with the solution.

 
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Posted in General

 

Going down down

09 Oct

Due to the economic problems that are occurring in the US, the Canadian economy is being affected as well. I thought that the bailout was supposed to smooth things out but it looks like the problems are still there. Even with the bailout, there are issues of executives wasting money and taking advantage of the money. The financial industry is in deep waters and really needs a life line right now. Stocks are plummeting and a lot of people rushing to the banks to withdraw money so they won’t lose it.

In the last week or so, my RRSP account has dropped at least 10% and it has not gone back up yet. Both of my accounts have been affected but one more than other. The RRSP account with RBC suffered the most lost but I’m not sure exactly why since it’s the conservative account. The RRSP account with Sun Life Financial dropped a few hundred dollars and it’s the aggressive account. I would have thought that it would have been more impacted.

Before After Change
RBC $8,145.16 $7,154.61 -$990.55
Sun Life $8,255.26 $7,842.33 -$412.93
    Loss: -$1,951.86

With every investment that you make, there are risks involved and if you’re lucky, there will be returns as well. At the moment, I’m not getting too much on the return side but none of this is considered risky either. I thought I understood the risk involved in investing but right now I’m not too sure anymore.

My RBC account, being conservative should be investing mostly in fixed income and the remainder in equity which leads me to assume that I shouldn’t be losing so much. If I understand this correctly, having most of the investments in fixed income would resist major changes in the market meaning that I wouldn’t lose too much. That’s the whole purpose of selecting conservative over aggressive.

I opened my RBC when I was a young man and I didn’t have much to invest but the money that I invested, I didn’t want to lose so I told them to make my portfolio a conservative one. It was a safe invest profile for me because I was willing to risk a lot. Once I learned more and more about investing, I was willing to take a higher risk which is what I’m doing with my Sun Life account.

The higher the risk that I am willing to take means the higher the potential loss. I’m willing to take a higher loss with the Sun Life account because my work place has an RRSP Matching plan where they’ll match my contribution by a certain amount. The amount is a high percentage but it’s enough for me to play around with.

With the market going down, it looks like it’s better to invest in fixed income. I changed the numbers around for the Sun Life account so that I would be investing mainly in equity with 0% in fixed income. So within the last three months I’ve lost 8.8% of my investment. As for my RBC account, I’ve lost 12.8% in the last three months.

Right now, I have a couple of options. I can either take advantage of the low market values or I can continue and invest the same amount. My RBC investments went as high as $8,507.80 in May before declining to its current value. My Sun Life investment was as high as $8,255.26 at the end of September and dropped to $7,842.33 as of today. I think that once the funds becomes available, I might max out my RRSP and contribute more while things are low and hopefully I’ll be rewarded when the market starts to stabilize.

 
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Posted in Finances

 

Job well done

08 Oct

The guys and I in the I.T. department don’t always get appreciated for the work that we done. Without us, things around here wouldn’t be this smooth but then again, without the user, we wouldn’t have a job. Every now and then it’s nice to get some positive feedback from the users to let us know that we’re doing a good job. I’ve received a few from some of my coworkers but then of them went as far as emailing my manager.

We have a procedure around here that says a user has to contact the Help Desk for any I.T. related issues. From what the users have told me, the Help Desk might as well be called the Helpless Desk. Our users are very frustrated with some of the Tech Support guys in Orlando and it seems like they do not like the quality of job that those guys are doing.

When a user calls in to open a call ticket, they expect it to be remedied in a timely manner. Usually, Tech Support are Level 1 support so if they take more than fifteen minutes to work on an issue, they should pass it on to the Level 2 support which are the Desk side Technicians, ergo me. People don’t want to be on the phone for hours on end when it would take a Technician a matter of minutes to solve the issue. But lately, that’s the case because it seems like no one wants to call the Help Desk anymore.

One of the engineers called in to the Help Desk because he was having problems with his Outlook email client. He would get an error message and it would keep appearing every so often. The Tech Support on the phone connected to this computer and looked around. He checked the Sent Items folder to see if there’s anything there. My coworker remained the Tech Support guy that “sent items” means that the emails have been sent and recommended that he check out the “outbox” folder. The Tech Support assured him that it in the sent items somewhere. So after looking around for a few minutes, he told my coworker that he’ll have to call the exchange guys because the file that my coworker was sending had a large attachment and it’s probably stuck in the exchange queue.

The ticket was later passed on to someone on the Exchange team and that guy deletes the email and closed the ticket. My coworker on the other hand was still having the same issue so he’s confused as to why the ticket was closed when the issue was still there. He calls back to the Help Desk and asks for a Manager so he can escalate this issue. The manager doesn’t know what to do so he tells my coworker to wait a bit while they try to solve the issue. This ticket was opened last Friday.

My coworker was getting frustrated and couldn’t send out any emails so he gives me a call and asks me to take a look. For an issue that like that has take days to resolve, the ticket should have been forwarded to Desk side Support. I head over to my coworkers cubicle and fixed the problem in a matter of seconds. He was amazed that I came through for him and really appreciated the fact that he can now get back to work. The problem was that his email had an attachment where the files were thirty megabytes in size so he was correctly to tell the Tech Support about the outbox folder. I told my coworker that the recommend attachment size is ten megabytes because that’s an average size limit. He has Gmail and said something about Gmail letting him send files over twenty megabytes but I told him that we’re not Gmail. Our exchange server might not allow for something of that size so to be on the safe size, he should break up the file size to something smaller.

After seeing that I was able to fix his problem in a matter of seconds, he was very happy. He later went on a rant about the Help Desk being incompetent and that they should be fired for not knowing what they’re doing. Part of me agrees with him because sometimes those guys don’t know what they’re doing. It’s no wonder why their turnover rate is so high over there. They need to start hiring people who are trained or at least provide some sort of training so they can assist the users better. The faster they solve the problem, the quicker the user can get back to work.

My coworker sent out an email (since he’s about to now) to my manager letting him know that I did a good job. “Over the course of the last 10 months, Don Khuth helped me many-many times with the IT-related questions. Don performed it much better (quicker, politely, with feedback and follow-up) than the 5656 team which wasted a lot of my time. If the IT department has a Recognition program similar to the one we have in engineering, I would most willingly nominate Don for the Golden Award for his quick, competent and patient help.” My coworker’s kind words are much appreciated. After a stressful week, it’s nice to know that what you do at work means something to someone.

 
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Posted in Technology

 

Encryption bypassed

07 Oct

It only took me four working days but I’ve finally managed to retrieve the data from an encrypted drive. I was so stressed out from this ordeal that I couldn’t sleep at night. The impact of the whole thing didn’t set it right away but once I realized that the data on the hard drive is being used for a $25 million project, I start to feel bad. For a while, my guilty conscience got the best of me. I didn’t know when it was going to end.

This morning, I start to pack the hard drive and get it ready to be shipped out to a data recovery company. We’ve been sending hard drives to them for a while and they were pretty successful. Even with that track record, it wasn’t known for sure if they would be able to get the data out of an encrypted drive. If they did, there would be a pretty hefty price tag for their work. For a $25 million project, it’ll be worth it.

Before shipping out the drive, we had one last thing to try. I’ve managed to decrypt the drive last night but the information on the drive was unreadable. Windows wasn’t able to mount the drive and wanted to format it. I couldn’t mount the drive with Ubuntu because it couldn’t find the NTFS signature and I couldn’t mount a RAW drive. The hard drive didn’t have any physical defects to it so it’s working fine. The only problem was that none of the data on it could be read easily. I assumed that once the drive has been encrypted, Windows would load back up and everything would be fine. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here. After the decryption, the operating system wouldn’t load. After that point, things started to look a bit gloomy.

What I tried to do was get the Master Boot Record (MBR) repaired using an MBR from another machine. Theoretically speaking, if you move the MBR from another machine that has been encrypted in the same manner and overwrite the bad MBR, the hard drive should be working again. I was expecting that once I’ve booted up, I’ll be presented with a login screen and I can log in and access the files. So I used Linux to do a sector by sector copy of the MBR. First I tried the first 512 bytes and then I took a bigger chunk. I did the same to the corrupted MBR and then I overwrote it with the good version. At the time, all I was hoping to do was to get a login prompt so I can get into the hard drive and copy the important data. Unfortunately, the kernel from one system didn’t match the kernel from the other system and things came to a halt so back to the drawing board. Even though I used the same configuration and password for both machine, something was slightly different.

The slightly different kernel was a good thing though. When I booted up with the emergency, it detected some inconsistently and attempted to repair the kernel. That was a good thing because if the kernel is working, I can back that up and use it to decrypt the drive. Once I’ve decrypted the drive, it’s just a matter of getting the operating system to load so I can back up the drive. Unfortunately, something happened during the encryption process and messed up the boot sector where Windows reside and this caused another error. So with no OS, I assumed that I could connect the hard drive as a secondary and boot up using my computer. Once I’ve loaded the OS, Windows could connect to the drive and open up the files. This didn’t work because Windows couldn’t detect a file system on the drive and it wanted to format it before doing any further. That’s not exactly what I had in mind.

Nothing appears to be working the way that I thought it would work. I didn’t have many options left. I was surprise that I had options at all. I am not familiar with the software so I don’t know exactly what goes on in the background. I emailed my counterparts in Orlando and they have still yet to reply. I got a response from one guy but he told me to email some other guy. I don’t know why he didn’t just forward that guy the email to give him a heads up.

I didn’t have much choice but to send this drive out to a data recovery company in hopes that they will be able to do something. I packed up the drive and left it on my coworker’s desk so he can send it to the company. But before we sent it off, I came up with one last idea. I wanted to see if the encryption software could somehow repair the corrupted kernel. Once it has repaired, I can reboot the machine and use an emergency disk to log in a backup that repaired kernel. After the backup, I would reimage the machine and repair the kernel with the backup kernel. Now that the kernel has been repaired using a good backup kernel, I could attempt to decrypt it and get some data.

At first, I came to the same conclusion has my previous attempts but I did one thing different. I gave the hard drive to my coworker and asked him to use software to scan the drive for recognized files. As soon he started the scan, the software was able to find a few files. After a few minutes, more and more files were being recognized. Once the scan was completed, we were able to retrieve the user’s whole profile and recovered three gigabytes worth of information. I took everything that was found and stuck it on the server for the user to access. I hope that everything was recovered successfully. He should be happy with the data that we managed to get back. We don’t have to worry about sending it out and it saved $1500 in fees.

What I’ve learned from all of this is the importance of backing up. I’ve encrypted so many laptops before and they were all successful but that doesn’t mean that something can’t go wrong. If something can go wrong, it will. Murphy’s Law comes through every time. It has changed the way I do things around here and I back up just about everything before I do anything with the hard drive. If it was the user’s fault, I wouldn’t feel so bad but when part of the fault is on yourself, I’m sure you’ll have trouble sleeping at night too. I’m just glass that I was able to retrieve everything and that my hard work didn’t go in vain.

 
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