I was recently the victim of a known flaw in Xfinity Mobile's eSIM activation. When I first got my new phone, I could not access the eSIM using the activation instructions. So, I finally transferred my physical SIM card from my old phone and proceeded to use the phone. Three weeks later I finally got the e-SIM notification.

Puzzled, I clicked on it and tried to activate it but couldn't make it work and then my phone was not connected to a network at all. Since I am homebound by myself, it is essential that I have a phone for basic communication, so I was a little panicked. Obviously I couldn't call customer service for help! After much googling, watching YouTube videos and fiddling around, I finally got it reactivated three hours after the problem began. I then discovered that a delay in getting your eSIM is apparently a known Xfinity Mobile issue. Grrrr!

I'm still here.

@Cass is a time traveler. 😉

"Something went wrong"

Describes the experience of using proprietary software

Merrcury retrograde in confusing Pisces was conjunct with Mars this morning
going direct on the 20th, when the Sun will have just arrived in Aries, about to conjunct Neptune, so can't say there won't be more confusion.

lauriecorzett.substack.com/p/i…

LOL - I just had my static site generator -- Publii -- simply quit working. Suddenly declared it had no way to store secrets (like API keys) safely and thus no further operations were possible.

I mean, I could COMPOSE any web page I wanted but I could not deploy any of them anywhere.

I ended hand-coding (after an initial conversion from markdown) the one-pager I absolutely needed for my consultancy.

Checking In. 3rd month in a row that we have not updated our Windows systems because AGAIN Microsoft has screwed up the update and bricked a lot of computers because the C Drive suddenly cannot be accessed by programs (including Windows OP). Apparently more bad security theater causing security disasters.

Glad I have enough other defenses that I will continue to ignore updates until they fix this crap and I am sure that it won't brick our machines to accept updates.

My woe is also computorial.

My Windows disk suddenly stopped showing in the boot list and was inaccessible in Linux with an error message that could apply to multiple possibilities spanning both hardware and software. My irk was lessened by the thought that at least I have automated backups of the system configured so will at worst lose a few days.

However, neither of my backup images proves viable. So, I gritted my teeth and started researching best practices for diagnosing a wonk disk and repairing, or at least getting data off.

Because each time one accesses a disk it might exacerbate hardware issues or further wonk data, and repairing things (such as lost partitions) changes the data so also might cause further damage, I wanted to work on a copy.

Unfortunately, all the recommended approaches I could find used a method of imaging the disk, doing stuff, and then mounting the image, I'd need free space equal to twice the size of the disk; unshockingly, I don't have an entirely empty disk twice the size of the ones I use for my Windows install plus stuff I use that I still have Windows to access. However, I did manage to shunt stuff around enough to create equivalent space and take an image—which took an entire day.

I can't mount but at least now I have a copy I can diagnoses without risking further damage. Further laborious checking reveals no issues in partitions, sectors, boot records, or anything else data related that the depths of the internet suggest might be the cause, which suggests physical issues with the disk.

At least I have a copy, so I risk powering up the original drive and doing physical tests. The tests report the drive itself is fine. So, it's looking like my drive has been cursed…

Rather than continue to bang my head against the boot issue, I decide to at least get any documents &c. off the disk so I have them if I need them and then assess whether to wipe or pay a professional to take a look. Unfortunately, while I find programs that can recover files even if there's some issue with file headers or such, they don't preserve the folder structure; so, the output would need a lot of manual sorting to, for example, work out if something was a photograph that I took or a mobile phone background that was bundled into the installer for a game.

Which was when I recalled the manual for the imaging utility I used also mentioning cloning a single partition. So, after considering the risk of sacrificing the full image I had and again taking many hours, I replaced the image with a clone of just the primary partition without the other ones.

And, after a little fiddling with exact parameters in the mount command, was able to access all the files.

So, now all I need to do is come to a decision on whether to continue working on fixing whatever is wrong with the disk so I can regain access to my Windows setup as is, or commit to the irk of doing a fresh install of Windows.

The message here is, of course, that President Trump is a sex offender who parties with children.