Clearly I don’t have enough to occupy me, as two days ago I sat down at my computer and decided that I should remove the unfortunate linux installation attempt, and free up some space for more VCDs. Well, twenty minutes later I felt incredibly stupid because I ended up no longer being able to access the partition that all my stuff is on.

After about 10 minutes of panic and tantrums I calmed myself and thought – I dealt with this on Tim and Job’s computers – I can get my stuff back.

I got out the trusty old Knoppix CD – Linux with X-windows running entirely off a cd – and booted up. Could see all my files but – sheeit, didn’t I, in a month of paranoia, encrypt all my personal files, including email. And weren’t these the only files that actually matter!@!! Well, actually I managed to get all my photos, since I turned encryption off for them. Phew…

But how to recover everything else? Last backup is a month old – so not THAT much lost – I started writing in my notebook again. But still trying to recover files. All the file recovery software I have found is a bit bollocks. Doesn’t do anything you can’t with Linux. Then I found a really useful looking web page today – www.beginningtoseethelight.org/efsrecovery/. Well, yet to try it out.