My 2003 server has gone for a burton!

[SunnyByfleet]

Luckily it is only a test one I have at home. However, I was doing some experiments with power usage, and this involved turning the machine on and off a few times.

Now, it won't boot.

It does the POST ok, then there is a blank screen, save for a row of squares at the bottom making a progress bar. These gradually get filled in, but before the end of the bar is filled the system reboots.

I have rebooted to the recovery console via a CD. It recognised the installation of WS2003 and after I selected 1, the only option, I was plonked in the C:\WINDOWS directory. However, I didn't know what to do after that.

I looked on M$ and they said I could repair by booting to the CD and instead of selecting R, pressing ENTER. However, their recover method relies on the CD recognising the existing 2003 installation. When I tried it, it didn't. It said I would be installing on a different OS.

What should I do? There are no backups etc, just the hard disk and the cd.

Help!

 

[58sniper]

No backups?

Format and reload.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[SunnyByfleet]

You must really like the sound of your own voice...

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

I had this issue, not caused from fingering the server. In my case it was a video driver. I was able to boot in safe-mode and installed the new driver. Have you tried booting in safe-mode? If you get the OS up you may be able to find the issue in the Event logs.

 

[58sniper]

You could also do the LAST KNOWN GOOD configuration. But, if using the CD doesn't recognize the installation, as you mentioned, I kinda doubt this is just a driver issue.

Once the system is stable, and has all relevant fixes & service packs installed, I would recommend a backup AND a full ASR.

Automated System Recovery (ASR) overview

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...6994-494b-8998-ea1e6d34392f1033.mspx?mfr=true

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[tookawhile]

I had a similar problem awhile back and it was down to the graphics card vs power supply, some high end graphic draw alot of current (400MHz + GPU etc, fans etc)

Swapped the graphics card for a basic one and it was fine.

 

[SunnyByfleet]

I've used the ERD Commander 2005 recovery CD on it, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that all the data on the drives still seems intact. The bad news is that ERD doesn't think WIndows 2003 is installed. This to me suggest a problem with the Boot Record.

I'm currently copying the data thats on the drive to another one, (yeah I know, too late for a backup), after that, is there any mileage in running FIXMBR from the console?

 

[SunnyByfleet]

With regards to drivers, nothing had changed overnight; no hardware or driver updates or anything. The only thing out of the ordinary was that it was power cycled a few times.

 

[bobsa32]

This looks like your registry hive is damaged, log onto the server using the recovery console, copy all of the registry hives to a new folder from the c:\windows\system32\config folder, then copy the backup registry hives from the c:\windows\repair folder.

This issue can be caused by rebooting a server a lot of times over a short period of time.