Black Screen with Curson On NT Server. Help Needed Urgently.! 2

[cyberdyne]

Hello friends,

My NT server 4.0 with SP-5 is giving me problems.
It wont boot. Only thing I get after POST is just a blinking Cursor on left-topmost screen. Can n e one help ? My important data is at stake.

I can be contacted at cyberdyne@softhome.net

Thanks in advance.

 

[jaeddy]

More information, please? Did something precede this such as adding new hardware, or updating drivers, or installing new software? Or did it just die on you? POST completes without errors, yes? Do you get any of the NT start-up (such as the option to select VGA mode)?

 

[SteelDragon]

You are probably missing or have a corrupt NTLDR file. What you need to do is find your Rescue Disk, Hopefully you created one, and do a NT Recovery. The rescue disk can also restore your registry, but in the case you are having here I'm not sure you want to do that. Use RDisk, and repair your NT installation, if that does not work post further details and I will be glad to assist.

Good Luck,

SteelDragon

 

[cyberdyne]

Thanks Jaeddy and SteelDragon,

I hvae not installed any thing new on server form hardware side or software side. The only last thing i remember is it was going very slow so i just shut it down but it went for longer time then i pressed RESET switch and then onwards it is just showing me blank screen with cursor. No error message or no menu option nothing.

One more thing i have marked is when i am having my server hdd as standalone and if i try to boot from NT Bootable floppy it wont.
But if i attach another hard disk (WIN98 say ) as primary and server hdd as slave and then i boot from NT bootable disk it will at least boot from Floppy. This is very confusing as i can not make out what is happening.

ok after posting this msg i tried to attach my server hdd to another NT server hdd as slave. I was able to access my both drives C (FAT) and D (NTFS) data and have copied safely to another hdd but this is very interesting for me slove the problem.

And lastly i do not have Emergency Rescue Disk (ERD) made at time of installation. So what to do ? When i start setup from Bootable floppy it is asking for ERD which i dont have. Can I use ERD made on another server on this ? Please reply soon as today is second day my work is at halt.

Thanks Apoorva

 

[jaeddy]

The ERD is specific to each server (as far as the registry information and SAM recovery is concerned). It sounds to me like a possible hardware issue, but there does not seem to be a common thread here. Generally a corrupt HDD will kick out an error as the system attempts to boot, and the fact that you couldn't boot from a floppy with that drive installed makes me wonder if the HDD itself has gone bad (a bad I/O buffer or some other hardware problem). That it would run as a slave does not entirely rule that out.

Glad you got your data back, though.

I would be tempted to download the manufacturer's maintenance utilities and run some tests on the HDD itself (bear in mind it will likely destroy all the data on it).

 

[cyberdyne]

Hi Jaeddy,
Thanks for your reply.
I booted my comp with floppy with primary hdd with win98 and server hdd as slave. When it asked for reapir hdd and then it asked for ERD. I ngave it another server's ERD and it worked. But then it needed to copy some files from NT SERVE CD at this moment it gave error NTlrd not found on CD or is corroupted. I am surprised ! CD is ok. I dont know. may be my CD drive is not working properly. so I will check this tomorrow with new drive and let you know. This I am doing for knowledge.

Now a queastion arises if my this idea wont work tomorrow ,
now that i have my data safe , i want to format HDD and reload NT server again. But it wont let me boot from Floppy what do i do ?

If the idea works then there is no question of re installing. What u say ?

Thanks

Apoorva

 

[SteelDragon]

Boot from the NT CD Directly if it won't let you boot from the floppy. All MS are currently bootable if your Harware supports bootable CD's. you may have to tell your server Bios to boot from CD tho.

Good Luck,

SteelDragon

 

[cyberdyne]

Thanks Jaeddy and SteelDragon,

Thanks alot for your replies. I have found out that my harddisk was giving problem. There was problem with my hard disk so I will get a new hard disk now. and this will be 20 gb size.

Now can u suggest me what partition size should i opt for ?

I want win98 and winNT4.0 both. On NT i will be running Oracle and VB. and on win98 some other programs. What partition size would be advisable ? Should I go for NTFS or FAT is ok ? I dont mind lesser speed in case of FAT as there will be max 1 client connecting to server and that also for some testing purposes to test my software. Also on which drive i should install NT and win98 ? can u please guide me ?

Thanks again for yopur kind help.

Apoorva

 

[jaeddy]

When dual booting between 98 and NT a number of issues arrise, not the least of which is do you want to share files between them? Since NT does not recognize FAT32 and 98 does not recognise NTFS the problem is pretty obvious.

Options:

It really is a question of security and convenience. If you can live with the wasted drive space, slow performance and utter lack of security, use FAT16 the whole way. Partition your drive as you see fit, format it all FAT16 and install 98, then NT. Be aware of partition size limits (2GB for 98 and 4GB for NT).

Create a 300MB C partition formatted as FAT, a second partition for 98 using FAT32 and another for NT using NTFS. Install 98 first and put it on the FAT32 partition, then install NT on the NTFS partition. You have to be careful about the initial partition sizes since there is some restriction regarding the location of the NT system partition on the physical disk (is this still true, anyone?).

A third option is to use more than one HDD. A first drive, again with the 300MB C partition, the rest given over to FAT32 and 98, the second drive NTFS and given over to NT. This is my preferred configuration. The 300MB FAT13 partition lets you park files you want to copy between opertating systems. If you need more shared space create another FAT16 partition on the NT drive.

 

[Rockers]

Cyberdyne

Sorry for the late reply, head over to

http://www.microsoft.com

and check out the following article in Technet Q228734
I think this was your problem

I've got this problem, its a biiiiiitch
my machine wont boot of the HDD, my RAS doesnt work....Arghhh

Boot floppy works though.