Ultimate Boot CD and the Case of Missing NTLDR

Trying to find a purpose to live beyond the ordinary, I have resolved to help my relatives with PC problems. Now this is a very boring job when you know that "just formatting the hard disk" or "buying more expensive equipment" will solve the problem; I try not to suggest such extreme measures as this just eases your job and sheds cloak of gloom over the face of the person facing the problem.

By the way, I am not into PC troubleshooting as my day job (and I am not much knowledgeable with OS problems either). However, I do learn a little from time to time.

So, I got a call for help where somebody close was getting an "NTLDR is missing" error on booting his Windows XP machine. Fortunately, I had downloaded (and used) Ultimate Boot CD some time earlier. I knew this would be indispensable.

When you boot with UBCD, it provides you with lots and lots of tools. Knowing the right tool for the job takes some time.

A quick search on the Internet revealed that the three files required in the first partition for booting up a Windows XP machine include

• boot.ini


• ntdetect.com


• ntldr

I used Volkov Commander (included with the CD) and enabled NTFS support; I found out that all these files were missing from the Win XP paritition. A rather peculiar thing with UBCD is that it messed up with the drive letters (it could be due to the fact that some partitions were FAT 32 and some others with NTFS). Moreover, enabling NTFS support just makes NTFS partitions readable (more on that below).

With some effort, I found out "Avira NTFS4DOS Personal" in UBCD allows you to write to NTFS. I put in a Windows XP setup CD and copied ntdetect.com and ntldr from i386 folder of the setup CD to the root of the NTFS partition. I had to manually create boot.ini (contents copied below):

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin


And it worked! Thanks to UBCD!

Note to self: considering that almost everyone in Pakistan uses Windows as their OS, I should give UBCD for Windows a try.

$50 billion scam!

It seems that Double Shah's don't exist only in Pakistan. Our world is very prone to risks: see this $50 billion scam!

Host and Guest Communication on Sun xVM VirtualBox

I recently installed Ubuntu 8.10 on a Sun xVM VirtualBox VM (running on Windows XP). Unlike VMWare Server, there is no direct/ default way of communication between the guest and the host. The solution, which I found after spending a few hours, is to establish port forwarding from the host to the guest. Please enlighten me if somebody knows a better way.

Sun xVM comes up with a command line tool vboxmanage. On my Windows host, it's located in C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox. You need to run the following three commands to establish port forwarding:

vboxmanage setextradata "Ubuntu" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestFTP/Protocol" TCP
vboxmanage setextradata "Ubuntu" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestFTP/GuestPort" 21
vboxmanage setextradata "Ubuntu" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestFTP/HostPort" 1121


Here, Ubuntu is the name of my VM. I have chosen guestFTP as the name of the service which will be forwarded --- you can replace this part with something of your choice. Essentially, the commands set three parameters: protocol, guest port and host port.

Dialup Internet Billing Model is Changing!

About a month ago PTCL announced dial up Internet to be free of cost in Pakistan. Well, it's not actually free---there is an upper cap on the number of free hours but it's more than what most of the ordinary users would need.

Many people thought that this would kill all the ISP's which are not yet into the broadband and Wimax market. An email on Pakgrid mailing list by the CEO of Micronet says that Internet billing is soon going to be change for all dialup users regardless of their ISP. No more scratch cards! And no extra charges except for a local call charge! Every 20 minutes of usage will cost a local call, and customers would get charged in their regular monthly PTCL landline bill.

Pakistan's telecom industry is surely much mature than one would think of.

Distance Learning/ Swedish Universities

I recently saw an email from a Pakistani pursuing "Internet MBA" degree from BTH. A bit surprised, because BTH is a regular university in Sweden and also because education is still free in the country, I googled and found a few interesting facts about Distance Learning.

The cost of Internet MBA is 0 just like other programs offered by most of the Swedish universities. Moreover, you save on the living expenses of the country as well!

Admissions to the program is like regular admissions; you have to have a bachelor's degree, and show English language proficiency, etc. The university is selective in whom to give admission and whom to reject. For example, for Internet MBA, BTH gets 800 applications out of which it short lists around 70. Attendance is must and there are quite a few rules which make it challenging.

Not only that, I found quite a few programs taught using the Internet:

• Masters in Geographical Inforamtion Systems (GIS) from Lund University


• Master Program in Information Security from Lulea University of Technology


• BTH also offers a Masters of Science in Informatics


• A number of courses at Karlstad Unviersity; specially IT, Project Management and Enterprise Systems

Considering the fact that Swedish universities offer world class education (not to forget a "recognized" degree), it's nice even if you complete only a few credit hours worth of courses from these universities.

Application Architecture Guide

If you have been looking for a very nice guide to Application Architecture, look no further than App Arch Guide 2.0 from MS Patterns and Practices team. I have not seen something so clearly put down; it's a must read if you want know OOP and have struggled through Design Patterns and now want to move a step further: Enterprise Application Architecture.

On Pseudo-Science and Anecdotes

Joel Spolsky has criticized the pseudo-science employed in some of the recent best sellers. I now feel guilty of reading all the books he has mentioned:

• Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat"


• Malcom Gladwell's "The Tipping Point


• Naseem Taleb's "The Black Swan"

Deep inside me, I also held the same opinion as Joel. But how would I have come to differentiate "pseudo-science" from "real-science" without reading such books?