Corrupt FAT?

[phillid2]

I had RAID batteries die and when I rebooted the Server, I had an "error loading operating system." I booted from the CD, used the repair module, ran bootfix, and the server booted up fine. Could be a delayed write corrupted the MBR. Anyways, all was well Saturday and Sunday.

I now get an occaisional error that a file is missing or corrupt in the windows\system32 folder. This happens when I try to run a applet in that folder. When I went poking around the folder, I found the system32 folder and half of the folders missing. Attempting to expand some of those files from the CD, I get a message in explorer that system32 already exists. I ran chkdsk from the CD with the /f option and it is queues after the next boot.

Before I boot a server that appears to be functioning, anyone have any clues how a FAT table (or whatever NTFS calls its allocation table) gets corrupted? My RAID software says all is well. I have not seen something like this since like DOS 4.0 about 15 years ago.

I hesitate reboot since the server is running and I would hate for it not restart when there may be a fix without a reboot. On the other hand, I problably need to fix it sonner than later.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[ShackDaddy]

Here's a decent runthrough of the possibilities:

http://users.iafrica.com/c/cq/cquirke/baddata.htm

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[phillid2]

Very helpful website, looks like it is written for PC's rather than servers, but it does confirm what I suspected - the RAID card probably caused the corruption. I'll probably hold off until I need to reboot and I have a spare day in case I cannot reboot right away.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[ShackDaddy]

You might consider backing up all production data (not OS), doing a reinstall of SBS, then doing a restore of your last good full backup of the OS (with system state restore), then restoring your recently backed up data. I'm thinking that you may have suffered some serious damage that you'll only begin to start becoming aware of, and this path would bring you back to a state with no corruption.

I'm thinking this because if one important directory has such obvious damage, you don't know what else might have been affected.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[phillid2]

I agree especially after I did a bootfix to get it to boot. The thing is the system32 folder had to be there at boot or the server would not have booted. I also ran CHKNTFS and it reports that NTFS is dirty on the boot drive and not the data drive, which Micro$oft states in a knowledge base article means CHKDSK /F should fix. It certainly sounds like an old-fashioned FAT error that CHKDSK used to fix pretty easily in the old DOS days. What scares me is this is not DOS. This is a jet fighter acting like an old Model T and if the server is still running just fine, I think I'll hold off when I can devote a day to it - just in case.

Again, thanks for the help. When I reboot, I'll report back what happened.

Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com