Blank screen after logon

[lpmartineau]

Hello,

I did something stupid earlier today and ran cleanup on my 2003 server and now when I log in as any user it gives me a nice blank nothing
its the colour of the users background and that is it, If I do ctrl alt delete I get the window, if I click task manager I Get the blank screen
same thing in safemode (wich wories me)

this is my domain controler so I need to fix it.
I have a backup of it but its on another file srever and if I can't log in its hard to restore

thank you VERY much

Luc

 

[markdmac]

What happens if you pick last known good configuration?

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

same problem, I gave that a try.

I think if I can just create a new user and add him to admin group and log on I should be able to do a restore and fix it, but I can't create a new user as all my machines are xp.

uh what a frustrating problem

Luc

 

[markdmac]

Not a problem. If you can remotely access the drives of the server such as: \\server\c$

Navigate to the Windows\System32 directory and run Adminpak.MSI on your workstation. That will give you a copy of AD Users & Computers that you can run from your XP machine. You can then elevate another user to Domain Admin.

If you suspect it is just a problem with the user profile, then while attached to the server navigate to Docuemnts and Settings and delete the profile directory for the Admin ID. The profile will rebuild, though you will loose any settings you had in that profile.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

Hi there,

I found that while searching and I created a new user and added him to the admin group. when I loged in via MSTSC I get the same problem, same problem on the physical machien as well. so it seems to be a problem in the registry. completely new user getting the same problem as the other users kinda scares me.

I deleted a profile from one user and let it recreate it and it had the same problem.

I restored a profile from backup and I get the same problem

it has to be the registry somewhere.

Thanks again

Luc

 

[lpmartineau]

well I just read on the cleanup! forum that someone had same problem as me and he ended up calling microsoft support. he said this:
"I had a Microsoft Engineer and a setup specialist on the phone with me trying to figure out how to fix it. We finally ended up having to do an in place installation to"

so I guess I am screwed for now, I will have to grab a spare machine here as I don't have a BDC and set it up into a BDC and then make it the master.

I have a question reguarding that, can I turn a BDC into a complete Master without having access to the PDC? well I have access but you know the problem )

I would have to demote the server I could use a snap in from xp box to do that could I not? or from the new win2k3 server?

(I can start a new post for te above question if needed)


Thank you again

Luc

 

[markdmac]

First off, there is no PDC/BDC. All domain controllers are peers. One or more can hold the FSMO roles.

Do you have a backup you could restore?

You have access to your data still, so why not backup data to a workstation or USB drive and then attempt to repair the existing install by booting to the Windows 2003 CD and choosing to repair the existing installation? Reapply SP1 and all might be good without loosing everything. If need be then do a restore from tape.

Ideally you will hopefully have an ASR from NTBackup. If so I would restore from that.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

the backup I do is using ntbackup.exe and I do the entire C drive and the system state.
I will give what you said a try but I Want to make sure I have a second windows 2003 server running and configured to accept connections before I fool arround with the first server and restoring, JUST in case it don't come back at all.

my spare server is almost ready to go, installing terminal server on it adn then Tomorrow I will finish configuring it.
I just have to find my documentions on moving the 4 or 5 (can't remember) roles over to this second 2003 server.

I do apreciate your help and advice

Luc

 

[markdmac]

Refer to this KB for transfering the FSMO roles.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=324801&product=winsvr2003

When you get your server up and running again be sure to check out the third choice on the NTBackup main screen. the choices are Backup, Restore and Create ASR. the ASR is an Automated System Recovery which is a combination disk/tape backup that lets you restore a system partition without havign to first reinstall an OS to access NTBackup. You just boot up off of the floppy with the tape in the drive and it does the work.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

Thanks Mark,
that did the trick
the new server is now the master at all 5 roles plus is a global catalogue, also made it the dhcp server and dns.
everything is moved over and the only to do is to demote the old server.
is there a way to do this from the new server? dcpromo /forcedemote would not work would it? I can't get into the old server to this from its own prompt

Thanks again

Luma

 

[markdmac]

My FAQ should help with that.

http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=4733

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

ok lets get one thing out of the way the server works BUT I can't log in to it! at all, no user cna log so no gui, its kinda hard to run dcpromo on a mahcine no one can log into

ok now that that is clear. how would I remove it as a dc on my domain?
the new server seems to be working ok, only one problem I seen
when I rebooted it, I tried to log back in and it said the domain did not exist, 5 minutes later it worked just fine.

Thank you

Luc

 

[markdmac]

The FAQ I linked to above has a script that will remove the old DC from the AD so long as you have transfered or seized all 5 FSMO roles.

At that point you can blow up, reload whatever the malfunctioning server.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

I Tried to run that script but after I entered the old DC's name it said not found.
I did transfer all the 5 roles and verified them by doing a query,

here are the 2 problems I have...
A: when I reboot the new dc (old one gone) after it boots up and I try to log on I get an error basicly saying the domain can't be found. after about 5 minutes it works just fine.

B: when trying to access the Domain controller group policy or the domain security policy I get an error saying I don't have permisions or bad creditals, well it was working with the old DC And I checked my permions and they are fine, I even tried the admin account. so I try to go directly into the dcpol.msc and I get the error about not finding the domain,

this has me a bit worried.

Thank you

Luc

 

[markdmac]

Sounds like you have a DNS problem on the new box. Make sure DNS is installed on the new server and that the server NIC only lists itself as a DNS server.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

DNS is installed and is working and the NIC tcp ip settings points to itself as DNS server (192.168.1.8 is the ipa ddress of this NIC and the dns ip is 192.168.1.8)

does it matter if the new DC has all 5 roles and is a GC as well?

Thank you very much

Luc

 

[markdmac]

Yes, it needs to be a GC in order for the login to work.

You may need to check the DNS server for additional GCs and delete the entries for the old server.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[lpmartineau]

yup it is a GC,
ok I found the stuff in DNS and removed it as per your FAQ,
I also ran the METADATA cleaner from NTDSutil according to

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;216498

rebooted
still took a good 15 minutes to finish booting up, I was then able to log in just fine, and now all the MSC's work, default domain controller group policy and domain policy work just fine.

I went threw all the DNS entries and removed everything for the old server.

going to reboot again and see what happens.

Luc