2014/09/02

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the HP printer will not print any more!

Problem: Sometimes some models of HP Laserjet printers suddenly end up producing prints while being turned on and online



Cause: Probably in some cases it may happen that the document sent to the printer "clog" the print queue or otherwise create problems in the printer driver or in the "spooler" Windows printing. These are the "software components" that manage printing. 

Sometimes, unfortunately, turning off and on the PC and / or the printer, the problem persists! On Windows, the printer seems online, but already by clicking on the icon, you will see a yellow triangle that indicates the problem.
Solution 1: 
  • Press the power button (which will become lit green) to turn on the printer. 
  • Open the Properties window. 
    • With Windows XP: Click Start -> Printers and Faxes, right-click the right mouse button on the printer and click Properties. 
    • Windows Vista: Click on Windows -> Control Panel, click Hardware and Sound -> Printer, then click with the right mouse button on the printer and click Properties. 
  • In the Properties window, click the Ports tab, then Enable bidirectional support and then Apply. 
  • In the Properties window, click the Configure tab, select the status On and then Apply. 
  • Unplug the power cord from the electrical outlet and from the back of the device. 
  • Disconnect the USB cable from the computer and then reconnect it. 
  • Reconnect the power cord to the back of the product and then plug it into an electrical outlet. 
  • Press the power button to turn on the printer 
  • Try again to print.

Solution 2: 
  • Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel 
  • Open Administrative Tools and then Services 
  • Look for the Print Spooler service, and click 2 times on 
  • Press the Stop button and stop the service (if it is not already stopped because of the problem) 
  • Now click on Start -> Run 
  • Write the command cmd and press the Enter key 
  • A window will open the DOS prompt (black) in which you must type the following commands: 
  • Navigate to the root folder with: cd \ 
  • Navigate to the folder spooled with: CD Windows \ system32 \ spool \ printers 
  • Delete all of the contents of this folder with DEL *. * 
  • Restart the Print Spooler service by clicking 2 times over and pressing Start
  • Try printing

Solution 3: 
Download the HP Print Diagnostic Utility (HPPDU.EXE) which performs a series of checks and can also automatically fix this specific problem, indicating that the print queue has pending "works" to be deleted. In addition, this software analyzes and solves a number of other errors and problems that can occur with both HP printers connected via USB or via Ethernet (LAN)

Update of 17/09/2012: The HP site appears to have eliminated this particular tool from its servers but you can still find it on the network (for example here). In compensation HP has released some new tools for verifying hardware and software problems of its products, namely the HP Diagnostic Tools


Note: sometimes the problem is much more simple and crude and just check that the print spooler of the printer in question has not been inadvertently put in "sleep". 

Check to see if the menu item "Printer" have a check mark in "Pause Printing" and if there were, deselect it


Of course, this type of error is not unique to HP printers but is common to all brands as it depends on the user's carelessness !!

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: 
In the past I have had problems in particular with the HP Laserjet P1006 and 1022, the operating system used was Windows Seven
In at least one case the error message concerned the Print Spooler service that was not running. The software HPPDU HP has solved the problems immediately and automatically. 
In the case of HP Laserjet 1020 and 1022 (and other printers Host based) as reported in the HP support blog, sometimes by printing PDF documents containing scanned images, HOST based printer drivers do not process the job properly and block the spooler. Also in this case we can use the solution 2 to unlock print spooling. A definitive solution seems be to adopt the PCL driver of a printer oldest such as the classic HP LaserJet III.

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2014/08/05

Windows 7 64-bit does not install printers shared from XP 32-bit? Here is the solution!

When a LAN (Local Area Network) has many Personal Computer (PC) associated with different operating systems (Windows XP, VISTA, SEVEN) may arise some problems with the printer drivers. When S.O. is part of the 32-bit and 64-bit part, it may cause incompatibility problems between printers, when you try to put them into sharing. 
In the Windows world for "shared printer" refers to a printing device is physically connected to a PC, but visible and usable by other PCs on the common local area network (LAN). 
Specifically, if a system with Windows 7 64-bit you try to install (with the classic "Connect") a shared printer that is physically connected to a PC using Windows XP 32-bit, usually the process does not go to successful, and it appears the error message "No driver found". 

In essence, the printer is not correctly detected when you mix Windows drivers of 32 and 64 bits! 

As long as it does not receive an official solution (patch) from Microsoft, here is the solution provided by Arthur Xie on Technet, to be taken on a PC that uses Windows SEVEN 64-bit

1. Click Start, click Control Panel and double click Devices and Printers.
2. Click Add a Printer. 
3. Select "Add a local printer". 
4. Select "Create a new port". Choose "Local Port" as the type of the port.
5. In the box "Enter a port name", type the address as the following format.
\\[IP address of the host computer]\[The Share Name of the printer]
Then click Next, (for example, \ \ PC1XP \ hplaserjet).
6. Click the button Windows Update, wait for the process finishes and then look for the driver again.
7. Finish the installation.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: 
Printer sharing with the combination Windows SEVEN 64-bit + XP 32-bit gave me a lot of problems with printers of different brands. 
While Windows 7 32-bit + 32-bit XP normally not one problem. 
Of course the real network printers, ie those that have a built-in Ethernet port and can be configured with a specific IP address, of course, are immune to this problem! 
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2014/08/04

Corrupted file system ... how to retrieve data from file.CHK? 5 software to repair the damage!

Sometimes, unfortunately, it may happen that the operating system (Windows) is no longer able to read some files. This typically happens because the file system has been damaged because of a problem software and / or hardware.
Unfortunately, it is not always possible remedy easily and, depending on the files or folders that have been damaged, it may become impossible booting the operating system!
Example: Checking the File System on Disk C:
The various versions of Windows (98, XP, VISTA, SEVEN, 8) over time have increased their level of security, and in the meantime the file system has changed (from FAT, FAT32, exFAT to NTFS) and has increased the its robustness to errors.

Reliability
"Under FAT or HPFS (1), if a sector that is the location of one of the file system's special objects fails, then a single sector failure will occur. NTFS avoids this in two ways: first, by not using special objects on the disk and tracking and protecting all objects that are on the disk. Secondly, under NTFS, multiple copies (the number depends on the volume size) of the Master File Table are kept." Microsoft Source
Note (1): HPFS file system is introduced with OS / 2. HPFS is only supported in Windows NT versions 3.1, 3.5 and 3.51. In Windows NT 4.0 is not supported, nor is it allowed to access HPFS partitions.

Even today, some computers have storage devices that use File System older and less secure (FAT). More simply, many of us often use USB keys that are usually pre-formatted with FAT32 (not NTFS).

When problems occur in the file system, often already during system startup or when you insert a USB flash drive, the operating system performs automatic procedures that attempt to correct errors using the controls and procedures are already in Windows:

1) Chkdsk: from a DOS command that checks and tries to repair the file system. For example chkdsk c: / ​​F / R

2) Scandisk: a Windows program that checks and tries to repair the file system. For example Scandskw.exe

If these steps fail to "fix" the file system often creates a hidden folder FOUND.000 that contains all the files or file fragments recovered. They are renamed in the form FILExxxx.CHK, where xxxx is a sequential number.

Files with the extension. CHK (Checkpoint) identify precisely lost file fragments and often contain files mixed together so unusable.
Unfortunately, this type of extension does not facilitate the inspection of the files to see if they are still usable or not, but they can rush to the aid specific software (some free) that help in retrieving data such as:


2) FileCHK Martin Kratz (download from the website of Eric Phelps)

3) CHK-Mate of DIY DataRecovery 


All these software examine and replace the extension of file.CHK with the most appropriate depending on the nature of the files (photos, documents, music, etc..). In this way it is easier to open and check if they are valid.
In some fortunate cases the file is in fact intact and usable!

There are also other Shareware software (for a fee), but for which I have NOT been able to verify the effective capacity...

5) CHK File Recovery of CHEAP Recovery Solutions

Finally, for those who want to examine the contents of your files manually (e.g. with Notepad) I recommend watching the first few characters of the file and compare them with the legend below to understand the nature of the files examined and associate the correct extension.

PK: compressed file (.ZIP)
MZ: executable (.EXE,.DLLs, .OCX)
BM: image (.BMP)
GIF89: image (.GIF)
II: image (.TIF)
Rar!: Compressed file (.RAR)
By: Microsoft Office files (.DOC, .XLS)
ITSF: compiled HTML file (.CHM)
% PDF: Adobe Acrobat file (.PDF)
‰ PNG: image (.PNG)

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
Supports most fragile and sensitive to problems of file system are USB flash drives and external USB hard drives, especially when using the old FAT system. Often the errors on the file system appear after you have removed the USB stick from your PC without first having "disconnected" with the specific function of Windows system tray, especially when the operating system was still copying or saving data on the stick or still had open files on it.

I remember one day in a USB flash drive (FAT32) used with Windows XP, I happened to lose the contents of an entire sub-folder (which showed "strange" characters instead of the name of the file). By inserting the same key on a PC with Windows 7, the OS I was properly warned of the problem and unfortunately "correct" File System automatically transforming however corrupt files on more than 1300 files with. CHK!
Thanks to the above mentioned software are quickly able to recover at least a portion of the documents from 1300!
Then I used a utility for Low Level Formatting (Low Level Format) to clear the entire contents of the key, and reuse the usb stick, see here: HDD LLF: how to low level format the hard drive.

Council No. 1: when you buy a new USB stick, which occurs with the operating system will use mainly:
  • If you use them only as a support for exchange between multiple PCs with different operating systems (XP, VISTA, SEVEN) then you need maximum compatibility then leave it as it is (pre-formatted FAT32).
  • If instead you use to store important data (such as backups) and mostly with 1 PC and 1 single operating system (eg Windows 7) then re-format it immediately into NTFS (New Technology File System), as the latter is more robust to errors. It 's true that NTFS loses compatibility with some older PCs, but there is for them a special reading software (NTFS Reader for Win 95, 98, Me).

Council No. 2: If you have hard drives or USB PC that already contain some data (FAT32 file system), you can convert it to NTFS without losing data by using the system command convert. For example, to convert the C: drive just writes from the command prompt: convert c: / f's: ntfs
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