Just got a new D-Link  DIR 615 Wireless N Router today, after a week of my old Netgear router stopped working (have to do a postmortem of that router soon). After the issue faced during the setup of my old netgear router, this time, wanted to ensure that, the setup of this router, is smooth and without issues. 

The cover of the router box itself said, "EASY INSTALL - 3 simple steps". That gave me lot of relief, as i dont have to go through the rather little difficult task of configuring it manually. Inserted the CD, and launched the "Router Setup Wizard". After clicking on "Agree" button (as always, didnt read any line in that agreement text, but always ensure that, i drag the scroll bar down, till the end), the first page was to select the language. Selected English, and clicked Next. All is well till now. 

The second screen was "Checking the current network" and "Verifying the Current Network". started the first one of checking the current network. just then popped up an windows error window, saying that "The program has encountered an ERROR"... just thought it might be because of, the setup not be compliant with Windows Vista. Read the manual, which was saying it compatible from Windows2000 till  Windows7... 

Closed the wizard, took the CD out, inserted it, and tried again (got used to the Windows method of restarting to solve any error encountered). But no use with this one.

Also tried disabling the Windows Firewall, Defender, and other Anti-Malware services. but no hope of going through this setup wizard. 

Though i can manual setup, instead of using setup wizard, i wanted to find out the reason behind this setup wizard crash. After little reading here n there, and trying to understand what its doing when its checking for current network setup, finally was able to find the root cause for the crash. Found that, those network connections, which were created for the Virtualization Software(s), was the culprit behind this crash. This setup wizard was not able to get proper info or its getting some info which its not able to understand, and ultimately ends up crashing. 

Disabled all the other Network Connections, except the main one, in which i have connected it to the internet. This time, the whole setup went through fine, and configured my wireless connection also using the setup wizard. Relax at the end!!!!

Today i was facing a new type of scenario, where my friend has lost all the data and files, which was a collection of past three years. yes.. you read it right... all the efforts and documents collected over the period of three years. When it comes to data, just like wine, the older it is, the golden it is. But whatever it is, how many years it is, all data are just data, combinations of binaries stored somewhere. Most of us, when a file gets deleted accidentally or unintentionally, we just try to live with missing it forever, than trying to find a way to recover. Even if we think otherwise, there are lot of File/Data Recovery Softwares available now. And with those, you just do recover the files, just like that.

But consider the following scenario:

> You've Win2000 installed in your machine

> You wanted to upgrade to WinXP (or Vista, etc). So, you asked someone (A Computer Administrator / Support Engineer from the Software/Hardware Provider) to install WinXP

> He just comes and installs WinXP and leaves. (everything is good till now..)

> When you login to your system, you find your D Drive "EMPTY"!!!!!!!!!!!! (What!!!!)

All the files and folders inside the D Drive is gone now. He does not have to touch D Drive, at any cause. But, he did choose to format and partition D Drive also, and the innocent OS Installer, obeyed the master and formatted D Drive. The entire drive is gone, adding to that, you have a completely different OS Version on your machine now.

I faced this challenge today, from one of my friend. And my friend was so much concerned, as there was no backup taken ever, and decided to write these files to DVDs just yesterday, and this tragedy happened today. My friend called me immediately, hence i could tell her few very little , but very very very important, things to follow, in order to , atleast try recovering files.

"Try!!!!!"

"is there any way to do that????"

well... i'm now typing these lines, as the files are getting recovered and copied to another drive, with the exact folder structure as it was.

coming to the precautions.. (here, i'm referring to the things to take care, after this tragedy happened and for successful recover of files)... also these are the constraints, for recovering the files/data successfully...

> Make sure that no files/activity is done involving the formatted Drive. Any new files copied to that drive, will overwrite the previously formatted files, resulting in unsuccessful recovery of those files infected by these new files.

> thats it.. no other constraint. i would actually give more stress on the previous point.

Once the above constraint is met, you just need an extra storage space, to store/copy the required formatted files. I would suggest an External HDD, with atleast twice (just in case) the space required to backup the data.

Just download a command-line utility called TestDisk. (i know, you're waiting for this s/w or utility name to be mentioned...). Its completely an Open-Source Software with GPL. This is not just for File/Data Recovery, it does magic and wonders, plays very well with your storage and partitions. It really an awesome tool and has features for both novices and experts. Let me give you a short intro about this Magician called TestDisk:

Whats TestDisk?

TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

What can it do?

Fix partition table, recover deleted partition

DOS (either real or in a Windows 9x DOS-box),

Actually, this is the second time i'm using this software. First time, my C Drive got corrupted (because of the security feature in Vista), and while trying to format C Drive, since my D Drive was the extended partition of C Drive (all Dell Laptops comes with this kind of configuration, when you ask for separate D Drive), D Drive also got formatted. My situation then was far worse than what happened to my friend now. That time, i had a laptop, with nothing in it, no OS, no partitions, nothing. just a blank 60K worth piece, having lost my 250GB of files. Even to run this software, i need something.

so, this is what i did then, 

> download this software in my External HDD

> insert bootable OS CD

> go to the command prompt option, while booting

> invoke this TestDisk Utility

> Try to partition the corrupted partitions, and caz of the security feature in Vista, it wont allow to partition/format few areas in HDD (reserved for the system safety)

> No luck with partitioning and couldnt write MBR, hence switched to Recover Mode and recovered all my 250GB of data.

so, next time, use this tool, but take utmost care while using. A Very big warning from me, on handling this software, and misuse, would make you to throw your computer to trash.

The exact error which i got:

 "This is the WMX verification file. If you are having problems with the WMX verification for your blog please visit http://help.blogger.com/bin/static.py?page=start.cs"

This is how i resolved it:

** Click on "Custom Domain" link

** Click on "Switch to advanced settings" link

** In the "Your Domain" textbox, enter the dummy value as "http://[www.redthil.com]"

** Enter the Word Verification, and click on "Save Settings"

** You'll get "Settings Were Saved Successfully" message. (now, when you try accessing your blog with "http://redthil.blogspot.com", it will ask to try to redirect to the dummy website address.)

** Now from the dashboard, come to the Settings > Publishing page, and click on "blogspot.com" link (next to the "Switch to:" value)

** Word Verification again and try to access your blog url (http://redthil.blogspot.com) now. It should be working fine now. 

* Change your blog name from SETTING --> Publishing --> Type the new name --> word verification --> save setting then check it out, if you want to change the name again like the last name you made you can. just try it. (source: Blogger Forum)

This is how the events unfolded:

The above two headings were for those who suffers with this issue, and want a direct answer. The following paras explains how all these event unwrapped to come to this solution.

I was just trying to access my blog yesterday (the same one which you're reading now). I was totally shocked when i got an ERROR. And as usual, google was my immediate place to search for this error. Though i got few hits, that too in the Blogger Forum itself, it said that this is known bug in blogger and hence i thought there is way to solve this. On reading the threads in that forum entry, one option mentioned was to create a New Post. and thats the reason for my previous post JLT. Thats the interesting part of this issue. I was able to access these post, by giving the complete url in the address bar.

And that didn't solve the problem. so, back to the drawing board, googling/trying/re-trying... with no fruitfull results, went to bed. Morning was still more shocking, wherein i couldnt even login to my dashboard, but able to access my other blogs (except this one). it was throwing some error and some number, and no result on searching for that error number in Blogger Help too. After some time, i was able to access my dashboard (a big relief) and again started all the "ing"s. After many many many trials, finally what i have mentioned as the first option worked for me. This was the ultimate relief. :)

Oops.... if the title matches your search, then i feel really bad for your situation. Because this is the worst thing that you can imagine and the least scenario which you expect to happen to your costly router. But dont panic. Here's a simple and easy steps for overcoming that problem. I have tried to put down the steps in most elaborate and sequential manner, as i couldnt find such step-by-step procedure anywhere to solve this problem (if you know any, please dont hesitate to include it in comments).

Product:
I have WGR614v9 Wireless Router with me. So, the following steps are tried and tested in WGR614 Router Family. But please note that this is applicable to all the latest Netgear Router Families. You can find your Router Product Version on the bottom label of your router.

Symptoms:
Your router is not working. It occurs mostly after upgrading router to latest version. And you find that the Power LED blinks every second.

Cause:
Your router firmware is corrupt. (Note: Firmware - is a computer program that is embedded in a hardware device) The major possibility for this to happen is when power supply is cut down while the router is getting upgraded to the latest version i.e. while firmware in your router is upgrading. As the upgradation of firmware takes few minutes, its always advised to make sure that the power supply to the router wont get interrupted during that time (max 5 mins).

Solution:
Now lets come to your current situation i.e. Power LED is blinking. Firmware got corrupted somehow. Here are the very simple steps to solve this problem:

1. Download the latest firmware.
When you're upgrading the firmware automatically while starting the router, then it might have already downloaded the latest version. If so, locate that file. The filename looks like this "WGR614v9-V1.1.0.19.chk"
If the file is not there, you can download the latest firmware by choosing your router product family here. (for downloading, you can connect your computer directly to your modem for direct internet connection). Since the supported firmware versions are of GNU General Public License "GPL", you can also get the code for those here. (Note: Please refrain from using unsupported firmwares like Tomato, etc. , which will lead you to more troubles , like WAP/WAP2 security cant be used, though they solve this problem.

2. Download TFPT Client.
Though your firmware is corrupt, the good news is that there's a TFTP server running on your router. This enables us to manually push the proper firmware to the router. For this purpose, you need to have TFTP client on your machine. There are lot of free/trial softwares which provides you tftp client, like FTPrush, WinAgents, etc. , I used and will recommend Tftpd32 for first time users. You can download the software here and install it in your machine.

3. Connect your computer to the router.
Now you can disconnect direct connection to the modem and connect the cable to any one of the slots at the back of your router. (Note: You can't use wireless means for upgrading the router.) you'll need the wired connection between your system and the router.

4. Change your computer's ip address to static one.
The default id address for your router is 192.168.1.1, in other words, your router runs the tftp server in the mentioned address. The present setting for your computer will be "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically", since you were connected to internet. So, change it to static address by following the navigation "Start > Control Panel > Network Connections", right click on "Local Area Connection", click on "Properties", under General tab, select "Internet Protocol [TCP/IP]", click on "Properties" button, select "Use the following IP address" radio button, enter the values for IP Address: 182.168.1.2, Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0, Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1, select "Use the following DNS server addresses", enter the values for Preferred DNS server:192.168.1.1, Alternate DNS server:[leave it blank], click OK button in all the open windows for saving the settings.

Verify your settings by giving "ipconfig" in the command prompt, which should display the ipaddress as "192.168.1.2". Also verify the connection to the router by giving "ping 192.168.1.1" in cmd prompt, for which you should get successfull reply.

5. Upload the new firmware using tftp
Launch your tftp client using the navigation "Start > All Programs > Tftp32 > Tftp32". Click on the "Tftp Client" tab, and enter the values for Host: "192.168.1.1", Port:"69", for the Local File value: browse and select the latest firmware file which we downloaded in Step 1, and Click on "Put" button. The transfer may take from few seconds to few mins. Once the file is uploaded to the router, it will take 2 to 5 mins for the router to get updated. Still if your Power LED does not stop blinking, then try disconnecting the power supply and connect it again. Now you'll see the Power LED in ON state (instead of blinking state).

Congrats.... Thats it. You have successfully crossed the hurdle.

Now you can connect the router with your modem, make the settings of your computer to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically" by following the same process mentioned in Step 4, to allow your computer to connect automatically. Verify your internet connection now.