Category Archives: Troubleshooting

Full SSD on Windows 7 Lenovo Computer With Very Few Files

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Problem: Recently, I had the privilege to work on a computer, that according to the customer was always running out of space. That surprised me because the computer had a Samsung 750GB EVO SSD. The computer was a Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z running Windows 7. We had upgraded the computer from a traditional hard drive to a SSD a year ago and I was sure they had plenty of space. I decided to dig into the issue and find out what the problem was.

I noticed right away using Windows Explorer that drive C had around 75GB of free space. I browsed to C:\Users\<username>. I right-clicked on their user folder and selected the general tab. Underneath the general tab I saw their user account was using only 80GB-90GB of space. I thought this was odd.

I then downloaded my trusty WinDirStat utility. I ran the tool and left it scan the folders on the computer. What I saw was quite puzzling. WinDirStat said there was only 180GB of the SSD used. However, when I went under “Computer” using Windows Explorer I showed approximately 600GB of space being used.

I decided to do a Disk cleanup on the SSD. The disk cleanup utility found 5.5GB of unnecessary files. I cleaned the computer but that didn’t account for the extra 400GB of files lurking somewhere on the SSD.

Thinking there may have been something weird with the Samsung SSD, I downloaded and installed the Samsung Magician Software. I ran the program and everything indicated that the SSD was in excellent condition.

Solution: I decided to try one more disk analyzer tool for Windows 7. I downloaded SpaceSniffer. Not having real high hopes, I ran the program and I instantly saw two huge files lurking on the hard drive. I noticed they were stored under a C:\RRbackups\SZ\<folder>. I tried to browse to the RRbackups folder but I got an “access denied” message. I entered the whole file path location in Windows Explorer and I was able to find the backup folders. There were a couple folders.
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Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Won’t Delete old Backups

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Backups are so integral to any individual or company. However, backup errors can be quite frustrating to troubleshoot. Such was the case with this Acronis backup issue.

Problem: We installed Acronis Backup & Recovery Management Console on a server. From there we manage the backups for workstations. We kept running into the issue that the retention policies would never work. If we told the retention policy to delete backups older than 15 days, nothing would happen. It would save the backups and eventually fill up the external hard drive or network attached storage device. After digging around in the settings and trying to figure out if something wasn’t configured properly I was about ready to give up until I found this forum thread.

Here is how to fix your retention policy issue.

This is the example of the backup plan that was giving me issues.Acronis Simple Backup Plan I would do a simple backup scheme once a day. The backups would go to a Centralized Vault and were supposed to delete after 15 days. The problem was they would never be deleted and the NAS device would get filled with backups. Continue reading →

Tips to Identify and Remove Poweliks Virus

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Some more new malware that is hitting computers today. Thankfully there is a tool that can remove this one (or at least in my case). This blog post is about the Poweliks virus. You can find more detailed information about this virus on a couple other sites. I have the links at the bottom of the article.

The G DATA SecurityLabs have analyzed persistent malware which resides in the registry only and therefore does not create any file on the infected system. An overview of this mechanism was firstly described quite recently in the KernelMode.info forum. The analyzed sample is dropped by a Microsoft Word document which exploits the vulnerability described in CVE-2012-0158. The document was reported to be found as an attachment of fake Canada Post and/or USPS email which claims to hold information about ordered items for the recipient of the spam.

Source

I connected to a customer’s computer the other day. The laptop’s CPU usage was near 100% and had all kinds of crazy processes running. One process in particular was named inobbcrsb.exe. inobbcrsb.exe virusThis process was posing as a Google Chrome process. Also fixmapi.exe and msfeedssync.exe were using up an incredible amount of processing power.

First off download Process Explorer. You can see way more information on what is exactly happening with the processes on your computer. I knew inobbcrsb.exe had to be no good! I right-clicked on the process tree and suspended the process.Inobbcrsb.exe Posing as Google Chrome I checked the path where this executable was Continue reading →

The File Name is Too Long Windows Explorer

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Update 7/5/2017: Thanks to all my wonderful readers. Before trying the method below, you should try the Long Path Tool which can be downloaded here. If you would rather fix the error using the manual method check below. Thanks 

Problem: Customer tried to open a Word document and a PDF file he had created a while ago. Windows Explorer gave the an error, “file name is too long” when he tried to open his document.File Name is too Long - Windows Explorer

After a little digging around I found a solution to this problem. Windows 7 has a 256-260 character file/path limit. The file didn’t have a longer name than 256 characters, but the file was buried underneath many folders with big names.  I tried to right-click the file and select rename but I didn’t have that option. I couldn’t copy or cut the file to another location.

Resolution: Go one folder above where your document is stored. Rename that folder to something shorter (ex. name it one ). This should allow you to open the Word document now. Now change the Word file to a shorter name. Change the folder back to the original name. Check if you can still open your Word file. If you can still open the file, then you’re good! If you can’t open the file yet, move the folder to another location.

If you want to keep the file name of the document and the folder the same you should store the Word file in another location perhaps to your desktop or make a separate folder for the file.

Summary: In my situation, the customer had too many levels of folders with long names and spaces. The Word and PDF file he was trying to open had a big file name as well. Windows Explorer couldn’t handle long folder names and paths it gave the error, “file name is too long”.

Let me know if this helped you out by posting in the comments.

Source: WordBanter

This was posted by techspeeder.

 

Gmail IMAP “All Mail” Folder Missing in Outlook 2013

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I set up a Gmail email address in Outlook 2013 the other day. The customer wanted his Gmail account set up as an IMAP account.  I entered the settings and configured the account. Everything was working fine besides the fact the “all mail” folder was missing. There is a simple fix for this.

Step One: Right-click on your Gmail account in Outlook and click new folder. Name the new folder All Mail.

Create All Mail FolderStep Two: Right-click on your email account select Update Folder List. Update Folders

Your email account will synchronize your folders and will now bring down your email into your “All Mail” folder.

That was the “fix” that worked for me. If this didn’t fix your problem you can also try the following suggestion. Continue reading →