O Presario

Diamond knocked over the candle on Newton’s desk, starting a fire that destroyed records of many years’ research. Legend has it that Newton, viewing the destruction, said only, “O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the damage thou hast done.”

Monday 16th January 2006:
Time 6:30 AM
I had slept early the previous night(1 30..by my standards!)….had a pretty disturbed sleep…calicut seems hotter at night time. I had set an alarm in my cell phone for 6 30 and it did its duty and rang. With no intention to wake up but just to switch it off, i got up. Before i did so, i looked at ma computer. I never switch it off and so looked if i had got any new mail or scrap. To my horror, I was not staring at the usual Tarzan2 sleep wallpaper. Instead there was some message being displayed. Having wotchd a rerun of the matrix trilogy a week ago, I thought Morpheous had finally found me.Yessss….I knew it……. I am the ONE….wow!!! 😎 I cudn believe my eyes and so rubbed them and looked again….my happiness was shortlived and as i read the contents on ma screen, my face turned pale:

chainloader error
(hd0,0)
Error no: 13: Unspecified format. blah….blah….blah….

Wait a nimite…..This aint anywhere similar to wat I had expected:
Do you want to know wat the matrix is, Vivek?

So at 6 30 on a monday morning, I learnt my comp was knocked out…wat a start to the week!!!

Such a knock down is a usual thing in a computer. And being a CSE student, I knew there was no need to panic. But the real horror hit me when I learnt tat my entire C drive was wiped out(it contained 4 GB of data) and the worst part was when I realised that the 4 GB contained also contained the only copy of the tech paper and its references which I had finished a week back. I had sent the paper to a tech symposium a week back but it was not selected and was hoping to send it to other techfests. Usually I have backups in my various inbox(u never know which Mail is gonna konk out) ,my friends comp,etc. But this time, I had not done anything of tat sort and had lost the only copy of my precious(!) paper.

I reinstalled Windows XP Pro….it gets installed in a jiffy and my comp is bak alive and kicking. However all I cud do was to stare at ma computer and say:
“O Presario, Presario, thou little knowest the damage thou hast done.”