Oops.
 

I have a Gentoo linux workstation. Due to some software incompatabilities with my printer I installed win2k over vmware a year or so ago and have been using the VM daily for work and general puter tasks - for anyone not familiar with vmware it's basically a "virtual machine" that allows you to run a myriad of operating systems on other, completely different systems, ie solaris on windows, windows on linux, freebsd on windows etc.. it's very, very cool and I'd recommend checking it out if you like playing around with operating systems or wanna try out something new.. It has complete networking capabilities, this particular VM had it's own ip on my network and from the LAN appeared as a complete standalone system.

So anyway I managed to forget my admin password for the win2k VM. I've used a bootable Knoppix (linux) CD for system recovery on a few broken windows machines before so I figger I'll just boot the CD, grab the SAM, scp it off the machine and crack it. Well, the CD booted, knoppix came up but seemed a little slow to init KDE so I waited a bit and then it just kinda locked up. Uhoh, pull the cd, three finger salute - nothing, pull the plug on the whole damn system and now the VM won't boot. I'm fucked, the virtual disk is hosed and like a dummy I didn't make a freakin' backup, I was being cocky and was quite sure it would work. System was a year old and I lost a bunch of docs, pictures and bookmarks and I'm sure a bunch of stuff I haven't thought of yet... Ima ago cry now. Sucks 'cause I really should know better than to perform surgery on an OS without making a backup, I woulda if it wasn't my machine..

Don't do this.

oops is right......

The term "DOH!" and the blank look of Homer Simpson http://www.thesimpsons.com/bios/imag...mily_homer.gif come to mind.

Sorry to hear of your miss fortune.

Oh, files gone poof into cyber-grave

:'( I know how it feels... HDD crashed before, but this souNds.. painfuller

:(

That sucks pretty bad. But just look at it in more of an obsessive-compulsive way: You don't have to worry about those pesky and annoying "files" on your computer anymore! Now you can start over fresh!