I decided to yet again sue Bitlocker, even knowing the previous experencies i have with it. It previously cost me all my data, however i had backed up all my data. I am sure by now you know where this is going. So, the weekend just past i decided to Encrypt my Hard Drive using BitLocker. I am not sure what i did to piss off Murphy, but as usual with me and BitLocker something went wrong. I could no longer boot into Windows. No worries, I have my recovery key, so I go home and connect my Hard Drive to an enclosure, and try to access the data. As expected I get asked for the Recovery Key, which was saved on a flash drive. I duly enter the Recovery and verify it to discover that Windows will NOT accept it. I try to run a repair to correct the BootLoader problem, NO JOY 
!!!!!!, WITH NO BACKUP AT ALL.
So there is nothing to be done, FORMAT, OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and start again. We have a few tools in place at the office which we setup and decided this was the best to actually test our DR tools, what point is there in having a DR process without actually testing it. I just really hoped it would not be testing it.
You might now this icon, 
, if you do, you are running CIBECS. This proved to be quite helpful since we have automated backups of all our documents. What a treat, it worked perfectly, installed the agent, ran a restore and provided the ENCRYPTION KEY. Hey presto, documents back and looking in far better shape.
You might know MIMECAST as well, fortunately enough we use MIMECAST and they provide an archive for TEN YEAS. Since i started with the Company we have been using MIMECAST, so hello ARCHIVE and all my e-mail is there. As for all my previous e-mail, in any war there are casualties and they paid the ultimate price, gone, never to be seen again. I have been putting off my mail cleanup, this was a little drastic though BUT got the job DONE!!!
I am now a big fan of the “CLOUD” and I am actively using LIVE MESH SYNC, and a blackberry app which plugs into this to keep my personal files synced onto the “CLOUD”
Below, some nice pictures (keep in mind we were desperate for rain) from Karien’s parents place. Please excuse the quality, taken with BlackBerry.
“EMBRACE YOUR INNER GEEK AND
ROCK ON”
Fletcher's Blog 