Suggestions, NT boot error

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Mike Gale - 01 May 2006 23:13 GMT

Hi,

I have an NT 4 server that has functioned well with little attention for
years.

Last week it was very slow and on reboot it failed.

The failure was during the OS loader phase. (OS Loader V 4.01) I got 8 dots
then it froze up.

I assumed a damaged driver on disc.

I've tried a lot of things including booting it to XP with a CD with
appropriate (I believe) drivers.

(The machine in a Compaq Proliant 400)

Does anyone here have similar experience? If so what worked to fix it?

Thanks.

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John John - 02 May 2006 01:06 GMT

I don't know how to fix it but you could use the /sos switch in boot.ini
to see if you can find out what driver or process is hanging it. If you
can get that information you might then be able to fix the problem by
either disabling the service/driver or replacing a damaged file.

John

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Thanks.

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Calvin - 02 May 2006 06:25 GMT

Hi,

I agree with John John's suggestion - you need to do a boot with the /sos switch
in place. Easiest method to achieve this is to use the [VGA etc..] option on
your boot menu at system start-up. Ordinarily this includes the /sos switch.

The spots you normally see during boot are then replaced with the verbose 'real'
actions the system is performing. The spots at the OS Loader screen involve
loading and mounting of 'boot' drivers and the system registry hive and a few
other 'essential' files. Any of these being corrupted will cause a freeze, a
reboot or a STOP error as you described depending upon the circumstances.

If you can report what file being loaded 'breaks' the system, we may be able to
give you more help.

Calvin.

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Mike Gale - 02 May 2006 23:21 GMT

Thanks for that John and Calvin, much appreciated.

Unfortunately the situation is now worse:
1) After getting on with other work I booted again today. I went into
setup (where I go through all settings to make sure nothing has changed). I
found the clock had reset. I haven't seen that before, makes me think
battery.
2) After setup I got it booting. It reported a non-system disc or disc
error.

(I don't know whether the CD booting XP changed the disc or whether it's
something else.)

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John John - 03 May 2006 01:12 GMT

Do you have an Emergency Repair Disk? Now might be the time to use it.

Translation of your error message (from a Microsoft page):

Non-System Disk or Disk Error

This error is generated by the computer's BIOS when the boot sector or
master boot record of the boot drive is damaged or missing. This error
can also occur if the boot device has been improperly configured in the
BIOS. In this case, data in the partition may be valid and undamaged,
but there is no bootable partition.

NOTE: This message also occurs when a non-bootable disk is left in drive
A during startup. If you receive this error, make sure that there is no
disk in drive A and restart your computer.

You migh want to read here:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000229.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812492

Verify that the system drive is properly identified in the BIOS. Verify
the boot order.

If you don't have an ERD you can try to boot it from a floppy boot disk.
To create a floppy boot disk see the information here:
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ntboot/

Note the important information at the bottom regarding the all purpose
boot.ini supplied there:

This boot.ini assumes that windows is installed in the "WINDOWS" folder,
for terminal server you must edit the boot.ini and replace all "WINDOWS"
into "WTSRV", for Windows NT 4.0 you must edit the boot.ini and replace
all "WINDOWS" into "WINNT".

This boot.ini will not work for SCSI Controllers without a SCSI BIOS
(need NTBOOTDD.SYS on the diskette)

Post again if you can't get it to start. If you need to slave the drive
in another machine avoid slaving it in a Windows 2000/XP machine because
of the different NTFS file system version in those machines, they will
automatically convert NTFS discs to the newer version without asking you
and the newer NTFS versions can cause problems with NT4.

John

> Thanks for that John and Calvin, much appreciated.
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> (I don't know whether the CD booting XP changed the disc or whether it's
> something else.)

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