rebooted nt server and it will not go past "starting ms-dos?

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alan fluhrer - 10 Jun 2005 23:47 GMT

I don't know what happened. Regardin gprevios posts, I have not deleted any
files yet to make room for things.

Here's my system

Dell pawer edge 2400
Running NT Exchange Seerver 4.0 in conjunction with SMall Business server 5.5

3 disk drives, scsi raid
c: only has 45mg of space left

I was reading a post wheere

d; and e; drive have 7 and or 12 gig of free space each respectively.

I read a post where Jiri Tuma suggested to anotehr person to re install
exchange on a different drive then "get" the files I need off of the c drive.
This may be an option.

Here's a question related to this.

Can I

1. create an OS set up on the D or F drive. then use it to get my exchange
mail off. My big question here is....will I risk losing the data already on
the drive I want to point to

thanks a lot in advance

ALan

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Jetro - 11 Jun 2005 14:25 GMT

You can quickly rollout a spare server if you'd clone PE2400 image on
another disk.
Replace bootstrap loader, ntldr, and ntdetect.com, rarely ntbootdd.sys
(PE2400 doesn't demand it), on its W2k versions, and the loader will
recognize 137 GB of storage without 7.8 GB limitation.

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Jiri Tuma - 13 Jun 2005 11:57 GMT

there is not "starting ms-dos" message in NT OS boot sequence, so your boot
environment is not correct (at least).

If you can, make image backup of all drives before you try to do any
changes.

To check:
1. boot sequence and boot related settings in both MB and SCSI BIOSes. Check
what disk controller is primary and what disk on it is set to be bootable,
be also sure you are not booting from floppy or CD drive. It is possible
your CMOS memory lost settings due power failure (bad CMOS accumulator can
have similar effect) and is using default settings (usually autodetect) and
is trying to boot from different drive than expected.

2. Try to boot from NT boot floppy to avoid NT loader related failures.
However, creating of such floppy for unbootable system is not always easy.
Boot floppy you can get, if you format any floppy under NT based OS and copy
NTLDR., NTDETECT.COM, BOOT:INI and, if exist, also NTBOOTDD.SYS files to
this floppy. The problem is that BOOT.INI and NTBOOTDD.SYS are specific to
given system and manual creation of them can be hard. Better if you pick
them from running system or from any system backup (better from any backup
made before last server succesfull reboot). If you need to create them
manually, NTBOOTDD.SYS is renamed disk controller driver and is used only in
case you are using SCSI notation in boot.ini file. BOOT.INI file is text
file similar to following:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="NT based OS default location
using BIOS services"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="NT based OS default location using
SCSI driver"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 ..."
/fastdetect
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="Windows NT ... 4.00"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="Windows NT ... 4.00 [VGA]"
/basevideo /sos
C:\="MS-DOS"
C:\BOOTSECT.LIN="Linux"

To make it manually, you need to know exact location of your system from
disk controller point of view. Usually you can use generic line (first in
Operating system section) as it is location that is used in case you let NT
setup to use default settings. On some SCSI systems you need to use SCSI()
notation, because they are not able to load using multi(). This part left
from equal sign is nothing more then partition pointer followed by path to
main OS folder. Partion is given by four numbers - number of controller (but
practically all controller drivers see their controller as first, ie. 0),
number of disk connected to this controller (in physical order starting from
0) and partition number on given disk in MS standard drive lettering order
ie. primary partitions first then logical disks (partition numbers start
from 1). There is difference between multi() and scsi() notation. Multi
notation is using rdisk() parameter for disk number and while Scsi()
notation is using disk() parameter as id of target disk and rdisk() as LUN
of primary system disk (usually 0).

Booting from incorrect line will end with "inaccessible boot device" error
message coming from NT loader module. It is possible to use different disk
drivers for NT loader and NT kernel, but they should to use the same arc()
path for both system and boot partitions.

> I don't know what happened. Regardin gprevios posts, I have not deleted any
> files yet to make room for things.
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>
> ALan

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alan fluhrer - 13 Jun 2005 15:46 GMT

I just git in after I ran the dell diagnostics. It came back with no errors
at all. I think I may, may have accidently deted something when I thought I
was deleting my old data files. So I may have deleted a start up file. I will
try the advice given. I will write back to this group shortly I am sure

thanks

ALan

> there is not "starting ms-dos" message in NT OS boot sequence, so your boot
> environment is not correct (at least).
[quoted text clipped - 93 lines]
> >
> > ALan

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Jiri Tuma - 14 Jun 2005 11:07 GMT

i do not think it can happen due deleted files. Bootstrap loader code of NT
formatted system is looking for NTLDR. so there is no chance to get message
in title. This message is produced by MSDOS.SYS file and to load it you need
to invoke MSDOS bootstrap loder code. So either you are booting from
different partition (or disk) or boot sector of your system partition was
overwritten by MS-DOS version or there is system.ini set to load
automatically incorrectly installed MS-DOS instance. For ex. system.ini like
the one bellow will try to start nonNT based OS with bootstrap loder code in
file C:\BOOTSECT.DOS (usually incomplete MS-DOS instance used to prepare
disk before run of NT setup).

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=C:\
[operating systems]
C:\="MS-DOS"

if you have ERD, even old one, it may be worth to try to invoke "Inspect
startup environment" and "Inspect boot sector" options from NT Setup Repair
menu. But in NO CASE use option to check and repair files, this option will
mess up your OS instance to irrepairable state!!!

> I just git in after I ran the dell diagnostics. It came back with no errors
> at all. I think I may, may have accidently deted something when I thought I
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> > what disk controller is primary and what disk on it is set to be bootable,
> > be also sure you are not booting from floppy or CD drive. It is possible

> > your CMOS memory lost settings due power failure (bad CMOS accumulator can
> > have similar effect) and is using default settings (usually autodetect) and
[quoted text clipped - 83 lines]
> > >
> > > ALan

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