Category Archives: IT Storytime

Workstation Cannot Backup to Windows Server

I recently had to troubleshoot a PC that wouldn’t backup properly to Windows Server. At precisely 1% complete, the backup would fail every single time. The only intelligible error I could find was “EspCaptureFailed.”

To fix this issue, I highly recommend running a full checkdisk on your PC. Open a command prompt as an admin and run chkdsk /f /r.

Next, if you are running Windows 8 or newer, go ahead and run the commands to check your Windows image and repair/cleanup if necessary. Again, at a command prompt, run:

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Once completed successfully, run a system file check.

SFC /scannow

Once that scan is done, reboot if corruption was found and scan again until no further corruption is found. Next comes the fun part, open another command prompt as administrator and run:

diskpart

list volume

Search through the list and find and unmounted partition labeled EFI, ESP, or it may be blank… However, it will not be the WINRE partition. When you find it, note the volume number (#) on the left. Also, note a letter that is not currently used by Windows to map a drive, we’ll use this below where the (Z) is.

select volume #

assign letter=Z

exit

When diskpart closes out, you’ll be back at a regular command prompt. Run the following command:

chkdsk Z: /f /r

This will scan and you may be prompted if you want to continue. Choose yes and the scan will repair that partition.

Now return to diskpart, select the same volume, and run the command “remove letter=Z” and “list volume” one more time to verify that the drive is unmounted. Now you should be able to quit diskpart and reboot your PC. If your ESP partition was corrupted, it should now be repaired enough to allow for the computer to backup properly.

All USB Devices Suddenly Stop Working After Reboot

What to do when Windows is not recognizing ANY USB devices after rebooting. No keyboard, no mouse, nothing.

A customer called the other day with an interesting problem. She says that her keyboard and mouse isn’t working. Obvious, right? It’s her WIRELESS keyboard and mouse, and the batteries are dead/weak. Easy fix, right?

Wrong.

Let’s get down to the bottom of it, but first, let’s start back about four months ago.
The same customer has a failing harddrive. We clone it to an SSD, configure it properly, and set everything up. It appears to be fine, so we tell her to hold onto the old drive as a semi-backup and she’s good to go.

Four months later–PC won’t take input from anything. We’ve tried PS/2 keyboard/mouse, we’ve tried different USB peripherals, etc. Still nothing works. Safe mode won’t work, either, nor booting directly to command prompt. We can’t even do system restores. I did try to manually force a registry restore, which also had no effect.

My boss has the idea to backup all newer files, then re-clone her four-month failed drive backup onto the SSD again. Assuming what is on the old drive still has some integrity and it may require some additional work from me, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea. We try that, and at first the machine boots up and works fine. A few programs want to update, and I update them. Then I copy some of her files over. Everything still works. Then after rebooting a few times–BOOM–no more USB.

After ripping out quite a bit of my hair, I finally had the bright idea to manually copy our remote support program into her startup folder. Then I was successfully able to connect to her PC and take control using my laptop. I immediately check Device Manager, as any good Windows boy would in this situation and I am greeted by something I’ve never, ever experienced before.

EVERY SINGLE ITEM IN DEVICE MANAGER HAS AN EXCLAMATION POINT.
EVERY SINGLE ITEM HAS AN INVALID DRIVER SIGNATURE.
SOLUTION: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement on Boot

What was causing this problem? I have no idea.
No updates from Windows, no new application were installed, no obvious hardware failures…
(Except that this person has a house with very sketchy electric, and the PC is not plugged into an UPS)

Ended up doing an upgrade install of Windows atop her current install. She lost no programs, no files.
Everything worked fine after that. So it would seem that some Windows component was corrupted somehow. Why the component continued to corrupt itself over and over, I don’t know.

But if anyone else has the same problem–just hit F8 and disable driver signature enforcement.
Your PC might even be mostly usable after that point. Wish I knew more about would could have caused this issue in the first place. If you know more about it, comment below.