Windows crashed, XandrOS come to help

Windows Crashed
It happened to me yesterday. When suddenly the Windows Vista crashed, all the data for research and works stored in the HP laptop are at stake. At startup the blue screen appeared showing something realted to hardware/software change. I dunno what happened , maybe because of virus ?

Attempts
Until now I cannot login to may windows. All options has been tested, Safe Mode , Safe Mode with networking and also Last good Configuration (for system restore) but stills the blue screen appeared and its automatically restarted.
Last night me and my housemate tried to install xandrOS 2.0 since Linux OS can read the content of Windows partition. For information:

for FAT32: Linux can read or write into the partition
for NTFS : Linux can only reads from the partition

Installing XandrOS 2.0

First try : Express Install Option
Express Installation give an error where it says : " cannot resize windows partition ..... etc etc " . We suspect that the error due to C: Drive cannot be resized.. maybe because of it is protected by Vista?

Second Try : Custom Installation, resizing d: partition
2nd try was successfull , however we observed that , the resizing of D take a lot of time. The main reason most likely because the file in D: is not fragmented.

We start around 10.00 pm and installation completed around 12.15 am.

Current Progress
There are so much data to be backup.. while writing this entry.. the my HP laptop is working to write all the important files from D and C into CD. Maybe 4 or 5 CDs will be needed to store all the data.

To do Next
Format my HP for Windows Installation. I am not very familiar with Windows Installation, I'll ask my housemate!

Kubuntu Works Fine with Compaq Core Duo V3000

Just received a call from my friend , Husna regarding Linux Installation in Compaq Core Duo V3000 Laptop.

She came last two week to install Linux for NS2 Simulation . That day we tried to install Ubuntu 6.06 and 7.04. And XandrOS 2.0. After 3 - 4 exhaustive hours we failed to install it T_T.

For XandrOS installation every options (press CTRL button during the early CD boot to view the option) has been tried out , but it fails.

For Ubuntu , it cannot even read the installation CD for the installation.

So today, she told me that , the installation already successful!! with help from one expert at her workplace. From her experience , she says that Fedora works fine with the laptop. But since we have bad experience with Read Hat variants for long NS2 simulation time, she skipped this option.

Other success is the Ubuntu 7.10 can be installed using Live CD , but some display problem occurs . maybe because of the resolution?

However she tried to install Kubuntu (forgot to ask the version number). And it works fine.
Congratulation Husna! Next step is to install NS2.

Mannasim : A very brief evaluation

This morning, I together with my friend just have a look at the annasim framework. This is my brief evaluation after less than 30 minutes of using it :

1. The installation is quite easy, for those who have experience installing NS2 patch file .. it shouldn't be a big problem. The guide given in the mannasim website (given in my previous entry) are also straight forward.
   
2. It comes with a GUI to generate TCL script. Easy configuration. User can edit the tcl script if the topology / scenarios are not covered by the GUI. Of course some knowledge on creating NS2 simulation script are needed.
   
3. The script can be evaluated by typing ns .tcl. Everyone using NS2 should already know this.
4. I believe that there are some tools available in internet for trace file analysis.

Overall , I thinks it is a good start to use the Mannasim. What is your opinion? please feel free to share.