Eastern IT Meltdown...

Well, here we are in Korea... it's cloudy and a little cool, which is interesting, everybody says it is normally nice at this time of year. So far the trip isn't going according to plan...

At the airport I tried to get my SIM provisioned on the local CDMA carrier, Korea has a nice incompatable CDMA network - sadly the provisioning didn't seem to work at O2, so I left it. Only about 20 minutes later, when I tried to call into my voice mail I got a ring tone and then a Korean message... looks like it has worked, and my voicemail isn't anymore until my phone re-appears in Taiwan on Sunday.

Then, at breakfast we decide to go over the Presentation I was working on on the plane... Turn laptop on... ummm... sits there for a minute or so, before beeping and saying...

Primary HDD not found. Unable to boot.

Erk! Great, just swotting great, Belgium man, BELGIUM.

The guys in the office here in Korea are working on the laptop and trying to get me another CDMA phone to hook my SIM into. At least by tonight I might be back up and running.

Just had an amazing Korean-Japanese fusion lunch. A sort of Shaba-shaba style soup followed by noodles. Very yummy, lots of Kimchi (pickled cabbage with hot pepper dressing) and miso/chilli paste.

Waiting for our meetings to start now, sadly that looks like it will be around 4.30pm...

Bang....

... I slept well, I got up, had a nice swim, breakfast, felt marvellous.

Then it happened.

Bang. Time zone shift blerugh...

My boss is lounging in the next chair sleeping, I can barely keep my eyes open.

There's nothing for it. I need caffine and I need it now. Sadly, the coffee they make here in the Korean office has a lot in common with making love in a canoe...

I don't need to use the punch line do I?

It is dead, it has ceased to be...

At least that is the view of the man from Dell.

The HDD is badly broken.

So a week of business trip without a laptop. Yay!

Anybody know a good value data recovery service so I can at least get the last week's work back off it?