Buffalo DriveStation backup error on SBS Server 2008 (msexchangeis 9782, error code '2155348010')

Attaching a new Buffalo Drivestation 3TB Velocity USB 3.0 backup drive (HD_LXU3) to an old Windows Server 2008, which is part of Small Business Server 2008, reminded us of an error we'd not seen for a few years.

The standard Windows Server backup failed to run within a couple of minutes, despite having been configured for the new drive.

The Event Log showed an Exchange error from source msexchangeis with event id 9782. This was a little misleading, because all the exchange esetuil diagnostics and repairs will show no fault. A little further on in the event viewer you might also see an error that the backup failed with following error code '2155348010' and event id 517, which is a little more useful.

The fault lies with the fact that the Server 2008 Backup doesn't support larger capacity drives with the newer Advanced Format using 4096 byte sectors. It will only backup to a drive formatted with 512 byte sectors. Note that this is referring to the drive format sector size, not the volume or partition sector size.

If you're lucky, the USB drive you've bought had a download that will allow you to reformat the drive. Western Digital (WDC) have the WD Quick Formatter utility. More background detail and a link in this thread https://social.technet.microsoft.com

Buffalo have a similar utility, but its not available on the UK support page! Instead, if you head over to their Japanese support page http://buffalo.jp/support_ap/support/products/hd_lxu3.html and download the DriveFormatter2 program (its in English), you can reformat with 512 byte sectors. Select the correct drive and choose option 2: NTFS (Win 8, 7, Vista)

Backup, Backup, Backup ! Or what happens when you click on a Locky / Cryptolocker infected email attachment

I run an IT Services company providing IT Support in Preston, Lancashire. We recently had an incident where someone opened a fake invoice attachment in Word, then managed to enable macros and run some very suspicious code that triggered the Locky cryptovirus.

You might take the view that it'll never happen to you. But these emails are looking more authentic every week. Its only a matter of time until someone in your business triggers one. Read the story of How to fix a cryptovirus like Locky, Cryptolocker, Torrentlocker for more details of what happened and just how quickly it took hold.

The bottom line is you need layers of security
   - so scan the incoming email for junk and viruses
   - then scan on the computer or laptop for viruses with a different antivirus package
   - keep a separate Malware manual scanner handy for a second opinion
   - train your staff
   - make multiple backups

The key to multiple backups is a full easy to access onsite backup, as well as an online backup stored in a datacentre. That needs to be offsite to protect from fire, flood and theft - and in some cases cryptovirus too.Use a backup that offers a history or file versioning.

Be aware that a file sync service such as Dropbox or Onedrive isn't necessarily a useful backup - whatever damage or deletion or amendment or encryption happens to your file, will by synced immediately to the datacentre and then to your other devices. This will happen before you've had time to react.

Lost or forgetten iPad Restrictions PIN code

A client called having forgotten the 4 digit PIN code to access the Restrictions menu on one of the restaurant iPads. This used to be stored in plain text in one of the files saved to your computer backup by iTunes.

Its still in the same file now, its just encrypted now. There is a crack for it here
http://ios7hash.derson.us/

An extra tip - that 398bc9c ... etc file is a bit hard to spot in the directory. The easiest way on a Windows PC is to click once on one of the files in the directory, so its highlighted. Then start typing 398 and it will quickly jump to it, right-click and use Open With > Notepad

This saves doing a full wipe and reinstall of everything, just to reset the Restrictions code.

Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 and Windows 10

Pleased to report that following an upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, the old copy of Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 which runs on a SQL Server 2008 Express database survived. Definitely looks compatible to me - invoices, customers, reports all still running as before.

There is an outstanding, older issue where you can't export to PDF or Word. This relates to a court case Microsoft lost over XML - bit boring, but Office installs after that date won't work with Office Accounting. I do have an older Win7/Office 2007 laptop install and a virtualised XP install, both still work and will export to PDF and Word correctly.

Note that exporting reports to Excel works ok on all versions.

Glad that the Win 10 upgrade path is a lot smoother than the original Win 7 to Win 8 one, which completely killed the Office Accounting setup, breaking the SQL install. At that time, I managed to get away with reinstalling SQL and recovering the database from backup.

Definitely don't approach a major Windows upgrade without a full backup in place!

SBS Backup Configuration Wizard unexpected error 80070002

Got a Small Business Server 2003 R2 box that started throwing a whole load of errors about Update Services failing and Monitoring not working, neither was the standard MS NTBackup.

Updates Services 3.0 SP2 required an uninstall, then an uninstall of 2003R2 technologies. Followed by a reinstall of both.

Monitoring was straightforward. I ran the configure wizard and told it to reinstall back to default.

The Backup Configuration Wizard was a bit messier. When you ran the wizard and it applied all teh settings, you got the following message at around 75% progress
An unexpected error occurred (80070002)
Googling gave several different suggestions, including reinstall the Admin tools, a hotfix to recreate the MS Integration part of the registry and resetting WMI. None of which fixed the problem. I did notice that the summary configuration page quoted the backup destination as \Backup Files without the drive letter (external USB).

Poking around in the registry uncovered this in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SmallBusinessServer\Backup but it already included the drive letter. Editing the subkey didn't help.

Deleting the entire key did though. The backup wizard reset and prompted again for the destination drive plus backup exclusions, schedule, etc and completed with error. First backup is running right now ... hurrah

Best data recovery ever?

Just came across this story c/o the front page of Slashdot. I'm always warning clients about backups. They need to be done religiously. The only people that I find doing that though are the ones that have had a massive data loss in the past. I usually recommend online backup as the simplest, most effective approach. You get your critical files offsite every night automatically. As soon as people and tapes are involved the chances of having a good backup when you need it most start dropping.

Wonder what the recovery bill was for getting 90% of the data back from this drive that survived the Columbia Shuttle explosion? Or do you think Ontrack just went with the publicity generated?

Did your backup work last night?