Boot up fail post critical update

[specytechie]

My apologies for a pretty long first posting. Our Dell Power Edge 6005 Server OS MS Windows 2K. recently suffered a crash which has now happened twice - not in succession. After logging on and running Windows Critical updates allowing the 6 updates to flow, post a request from the system for a reboot our server has failed to come back up - both times displaying a message: "Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: Windows 2000 root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe Please re install a copy of the above file".

Attempts to repair failed and we have re installing the Operating System as a second system (WINNT2). Last time, with some expert help, we managed to recover to the old OS and for two weeks (including an Windows Update) everything was fine. This time however, things are not looking so easy to recover. I remember that before I allowed the reboot the update had reported that some of the updates had failed. The new OS rebooted after repair of the boot.ini file.

Comparing WINNT and the new WINNT2 I see WINNT has numerous additional folders listed (e.g. $M121Uninstall_KB893803$, $M121Uninstall_KB893803v2$, $NTServicePackUninstall$, $NTUninstall_KB329115$,etc).

This leads me to suspect our problem resides with the update. Any advice available please.

N.B. I have tried asking MS about this but didn’t get any constructive assistance.

Geoff

 

[MikeBatters]

Here a few options:

Do you have a caching proxy on your internet connection. I have seen proxies cache the downloads and infact the cached copy is corrupt.

Are you running low on disk space on the System Partition of the server?

Are you running some unusual AV software that may be interfering with the process.

Apart from basic services what else does this server run?

Mike

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Remember - There is always another way..........

 

[specytechie]

Thanks Mike,

With some expert hands on help the system is now back up after restoring and rebuilding several files in the OS including the boot.ini file. However, as this is the second time we have experienced this same circumstance crash I’d love to get to the bottom of why it happened. Post getting it back we have run the critical update which pulled in 19 packages and rebooted successfully. Not unnaturally I’m now reluctant to apply further updates in case a repeat happens.

You asked:

“Do you have a caching proxy on your internet connection. I have seen proxies cache the downloads and infact the cached copy is corrupt.”

This is a primary school set up we have 32 workstations running directly off the domain there is a cache which acts primarily to run a web based programme called Espresso.

“Are you running low on disk space on the System Partition of the server?”

No problem there, the server is under two years old, healthy disks and has plenty of space.

“Are you running some unusual AV software that may be interfering with the process.”

Our AV is Sophos – which coincidentally server updated during at the critical update.

“Apart from basic services what else does this server run?”

Nothing complicated, MS Office is Workstation installed so the only programmes coming out on MSI are 2 Simples excellent Music Toolkit and Granada’s Black Cat suite (integrated package) which was an absolute pig to deploy.

Regards - Geoff