Member Server hanging at Applying Computer Settings

[MISAdmin]

I have a Member Server in my Domain running W2K SP4 w/ Terminal Services and is running Citrix.

This morning I was alerted to a problem with the server when staff reported that they were unable to print from Citrix. I logged in and verified that no printers were showing up.

Checking the services showed the Print Spooler Service was stopped and the Event Log concurred with an ID 1100.


No, big deal I thought. Server hasn't had any downtime in a couple months, so I thought this would be a good time. Figured I'd see if the Spooler loaded successfully on reboot and take it from there.

I went into WINNT/SYSTEM32/SPOOL/PRINTERS and removed the orphaned print entries and restarted the server


Now the Server hangs at either the "Applying Computer Settings" screen or the "Preparing Network Connections" screen and goes no further. Booting in Safe Mode shows me an event logged that just says "a device is inaccessable" and won't load NetLogin, ect ect.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on some things to try from here?

 

[itsp1965]

Usually when this happens I find there is an issue with networking also sounds like it's trying to connect to a print monitor.. Is this possible?
Try rebooting with the network cable disconnected which usually should let you back in. Check the event logs for any devices that were try to connect to (see if you can disable them) and then try rebooting again with the cable connected

 

[lhuegele]

Yes, sounds like a network issue or a problem with the NIC card in that server.

Good luck,

 

[MISAdmin]

Thanks for your input.

I don't know why I didn't think of booting without the ethernet cable attached myself! Sometimes you just need a hand ;-)

Before reading that, there was actually a 1000mb NIC in the machine that had been disabled since it was installed. (At the time, there were no 1000mb ports, so only the 100mb nic would work.

Since then I had installed some switches w/ 1000mb ports so I enabled that nic, assigned a different IP and tried attaching the ethernet there and booting... same issue.

So I don't think it's the actual NIC hardware thats at fault. Of course, both 100mb and 1000mb nics are onboard and they are Intel Pro cards. I'm wondering if a recent windows update or soething could have done something to the Intel driver. I think thats going to be my next attempt.

Booting w/o the ethernet cable does allow me to get to a desktop in standard mode, but of course, plugging in the ethernet cable after it's up doesn't help because, although I can ping it by name or IP, it won't communicate w/ the rest of the domain. This is a problem since my Terminal Services Licensing server exists on a seperate box There is nothing in the Event Logs that gives a clue as to what device might be having an issue.

For now, I'm going to try new NIC Drivers, but then I think I might turn my attention to DNS and see if something is up there...

 

[lhuegele]

Your event logs should show something about this problem, you should check there. Also, if your PC manufacturer has a diagnostic program you can run, try that.

Finally, try reinstalling your network drivers to see if that helps, or get updated drivers from the PC maker.

Another thing you could try is re-adding the machine to the network. That has cleared up issues for us before.

Good luck,

 

[MISAdmin]

Yeah, unfortunately not much in the event logs to go on. Just one event that says "a device is inaccessable" Not to helpful in pinpointing which device though...

I disjoined the Domain. But after reboot, when trying to rejoin, I couldn't. A little troubleshooting showed that I was also unable to ping the Domain controller (when I could just minutes before). I downloaded an updated driver for the NIC and installed it. After rebooting, I was able to ping again.

I was successfully able to rejoin the domain. Things were looking promising... then I rebooted.

Server would then only come up to "Starting Windows"bar and give me a message saying WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM was corrupt.

I have an ERD, but running repair from it didn't help. Ended up entering command prompt and trying to copy registry files from WINNT\REPAIR to SYSTEM32\CONFIG...

System now boots, but the files in \REPAIR were from before Citrix was even installed in the server. Can't find anythign newer in hidden directories, and even the Windows installer isn't working right at this point.

I took a full backup of the user profiles off the server from time of crash. I'm thinking I'm just going to rebuild the whole thing, reinstall apps and then lay profiles back down. Ugly, but it's clean and won't take quite as long as it sounds. I'm sure I can get it rebuilt and ready to go in a day...

 

[lhuegele]

Well good luck with that. Hopefully it's not a hardware issue and your rebuild doesn't end up being fruitless.

It sounds like you are having some hardware issues or issues with virus/spyware/malware of some sort. If it were me I'd still run diagnostics to see if there's a hardware issue before doing the rebuild.

Good luck either way you go.

 

[MISAdmin]

Yes, thanks again for your input.

I am thinking that I am going to restore the original corrupt registry files and try running a chkdsk from a command prompt as a last ditch effort... Perhaps if there is a bad sector/s on the disk it may repair it.

Other than that, I agree with you on hardware/virus/spyware issue.

I plan on running a full hardware diagnostic on the server before starting the rebuild.

My worry, although I can't find anything, is that this could be virus related. Because of that, I'm thinking I will treat it as though it's been comprimised and a rebuild would be the best bet.

Thanks again.