Low disk space -can't load windows!!! HELP.

[mjbosko]

W2K svr w/ Active Directory

I think we are out of disk space. The person who installed this server only gave us a 2mb partition for the OS. Its been limping along, but now when I rebooted the server - it goes through the loading windows banner screen. The progress bar goes all the way across, but then proceeds to reboot the machine. over and over and over.

I tried Safe Mode, and Safe Mode w/ Dos ... same thing...

How can I get in to try to clear off some space??? I'm stuck. Aaack!!

 

[aceofbase]

If you have a spare HDD, do the follwoing;

1/ Install OS on new HDD
2/ Boot up with the new HDD
3/ Have the existing HDD as D:\ or E:\ drive
4/ From there delete unnecessary files from the original HDD.

I have had the same issue with one of my off-site cleints.

If you have spare HDD that is.

aceofbase.

 

[mjbosko]

I'm attempting the recovery console... however, when it prompts for the administrator password, its not accepting it. ??

 

[vbrocks]

Do you have any other partitions or unallocated space left on the drive? If so you can install another copy of win2k in it and access your system partition and delete some files.

 

[markdmac]

mjbosko, do you have another Win2K box? If so, try removing the drive and adding it to another server/workstation. You should be able to import it as a foreign disk and access the file system to clear some space. Then return it to the original server.

I hope you find this post helpful. Please let me know if it was.

Regards,

Mark

 

[mjbosko]

Thanks, the idea is great - but I have no other PC at the moment.

I've been able to get the install CD going - they weren't giving me the correct password. Now I'm getting to the c:\winnt prompt anyway.

I'm at the point now where I don't think its the diskspace -though that is a problem too.

I see that there were several MS updates applied recently. I'm guessing that the installation of them might have failed due to the lack of disk space.

But being that I can't get the OS to load all the way, I"m not sure how to backout of the updates???????

Anyone?? This is getting nerve racking - only so much time in a night.

 

[mjbosko]

Ended up manually uninstalling the most recent Microsoft Windows Updates -- that took care of it. Had to use the w2kserver cd to get to the recovery console - from there I had to painstakingly read each uninst.bat file and enter each copy command to restore the files. I wasn't able to restore / delete the appropriate registry keys though. I'm nervous about that.

now that the OS is up again, I tried to go in to add/remove programs to uninstall those updates. the warning message microsoft gives, stating that a bunch of programs might not work after uinstalling the update, scared me away.......

Not sure what to do about the updates now.

 

[markdmac]

Uninstall some other software and reapply the updates, reinstall the other software to the larger partition.

I hope you find this post helpful. Please let me know if it was.

Regards,

Mark