Returning from hard disk disaster

Rescuing from near disaster

Posting in hope that the experience may help somebody else.

It is night of 3rd May, around 10 PM. I am just back from a 250 KM journey on a crowded train. Am carrying loads (literally) of INR as part of official duties and am on edge of my nerves. Have to travel total of 1500 KM starting tomorrow, distributing the INR. (sorry, you need to be 60+ to get them)

At home, sister takes me straight to the computer and shows me the dreaded "boot disk failure" message. uh. oh.

I hit the reset key, and now get a grub boot disk error. Darn. I reboot, Go into bios set up, notice that the 2 hard disks are detected. So reboot. Within a couple of milli seconds after ide drives are detected (by the kernel), it is hell on the screen. D***N.

Hit reboot again. Wonder fo wonders, I get too boot screen, and the system boots up normally. Now I know that (a) something is wrong with the disk at primary master - /dev/hda. (b) if I reboot, I may not have a running system. Panic bells start to ring. I feel fire down my neck as biwi and 2 year kid are screaming silently at me. But I need the system - some acccounts info is there on /dev/hdc. Biwi cools off when I tell her that her IT papers are there and may be lost for ever if I get up without fixing the system NOW.

The problem - a failed/failing /dev/hda. Thankfully, only /boot is what is required on that. Most other info is mere data, which I think has been backed up. (Hmmm... not so sure, but was was more important is having a working system).

I need to have a useful /boot on /dev/hdc. A tired body. stressed mind and high bp does not help.

Fire up irssi. Ask for help in a couple of channels, and end up helping others. No help in sight from others. It is 11.30 pm. Voltage in the power system goes up, and the tubelights start burning. (lol).

I edit /etc/fstab and comment out the entry for /boot. Re-install grub on /dev/hdc. Run update-grub to create /boot/grub/menu.lst. Look at /boot shows that there is no kernel image or initrd image. Searches /var/apt/archives to find linux-image-2.6.24-1-686_2.6.24-5_i386.deb. Installs it. run update-grub to put in the required entries.

Hold breath, pray and say "sudo init 6".

Go into bios, and tell the bios to boot from the the other hard disk. Continue booting. Problem solved. Everything works fine.

What would have been the situation if it was the "other" OS? I would have spent more than couple of days reinstalling the OS, then all the applications, configuring them, setting up the security, and all that. Data recovery may still be a problem with both OSes.

Creep into the bed room, and kid is sleeping. Biwi gives a cold glare, turns around and sleeps. Hooo!!!!!

RMS gets it right (yet again).

Here is the latest on Microsoft embracing open source.

They got their licenses approved by the OpenSource Initiative. The people at OSI argued that it was a good move by Microsoft; and the people who warned about Microsoft's bad intentions and arguing against approval of the licenses were de facto ignored.

Now, the people at Microsoft (oh; yes, not Microsoft, the corporate entity) are calling the licenses "Shared Source". There appear
to be other licenses which are not approved by the OSI which Microsoft calls "shared source".

Given the enormous public relationship machinery they have, Microsoft is going to re-brand the OSI approved licenses as "shared source"; and in public eye, "open source" is going to be associated with "shared source".

This is what is bringing me to RMS. I am often wonderstuck at RMS' ability to foresee the future.

His statements on use of the term "Open Source" are turning out to be prophetic. People often insist that the term ``free software'' is confusing; and RMS used to (and still does) insist that the term open source is even more so.

With this googly from Microsoft, one needs to wait and watch for one or two years to find out which term is going to be more confusing; and which term is going to be associated with users' freedoms.

Organised Power of the State

I was taught (and used to teach) that the heavy burden of proof laid on prosecution in criminal cases was because the prosecution is the ``State'', with the ``might of organised power'' behind it. That was (and is) perfectly true and valid.

That that is one of the reasons I used to support, (at debates between us lawyers, law students and teaches) the diluted burden of proof in prosecutions for terrorist activities.

Not anymore. Guantanamo is only one reason.

The other is what we are hearing from Gujarat - a lady and her husband were burnt (for god knows what) in a fake encounter.

The Gujrat incident reminds me of the famous ``Rajan Case'' (see http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/14/stories/2006041415240400.htm and http://rediff.co.in/news/2000/jun/26george.htm) of the emergency era, when an engineering student was picked up, rolled using a heavy wooden rod used for de husking rice, and when he died, his body was burnt using sugar - so that it does not leave behind even the ashes.

It took a confession of one of the police officers involved to bring the final details to light.

These incidents emphasises that retaining the strict burden proof on the prosecution is required, even in prosecutions involving use of organised power of the criminal mafioso or terrorist against the state.

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