There are nights that I panic. A paper is due in a few hours. An article needs to be re-read. Text needs editing. These are tense times. The other night was one of those nights. Fortunately, the UMPC came to my rescue.
Mistake #1
The start of the problems were a notebook that crashed with a BSOD. This hardly made writing comfortable - knowing the computer was going to randomly crash. Therefore, I looked around for a replacement iastor file from Intel. This was a huge mistake.
Fifteen minutes after installing the new version, the notebook locked up. This kept repeating every 15-minutes.
Mistake #2
After reading some instructions online, I decided to remove the iastor.sys file and attempt to restore the old version. Upon reboot, the system failed providing a STOP code and blue screen. There was no booting into safe mode nor normal mode. Linux could see the partition and files but I did not have a Windows Vista bootable CD (except the installation and Upgrade CD).
UMPC In Action
The only working machine was my UMPC. In an attempt to gain access to the drive, I booted off the CDROM with the ultimate boot disk, Vista's installation disk, and even a few other utilities. All the CDs were made on the UMPC. Without the UMPC, my life would have been equivalent to residing in Haydes. Instead, I was able to rebuild the notebook, restore my programs and files, and get back to work.
Phew. Thank you UMPC !
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