No Logon Prompt. No Anything

[Tyras]

This is the second time this has happened.

I am running a few servers but my IIS server has developed an odd problem for the second time now. When attempting to log on to the server either via RDP or locally, the system accepts the password and begins to "apply settings" then will bring up a pop up box that dissapears before i can read it, and logs me off. No matter what, you can't log on. Upon restart, the server starts normally and brings up the gray background, but the logon prompt doesn't come up. A mouse cursor is there and it moves around, but no logon appears. Subsequent restarts are without result.
The server is 2003 ent running IIS and this time WMS was also running. IIS was hosting 4 sites
No response to ping or Ctrl-Alt-Del, just a gray screen and my broken heart.
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated
Tyras M

 

[ncotton]

Check the Group Policy setting for "Allow users to log on locally"

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[Tyras]

Sadly the system is completely unresponsive after this happened. I am unable to log on in any fashion or make any changes. However local logons were allowed and did work fine, though I did most work on it via RDP.

In a nutshell the server has rebooted and will continue to reboot, into windows and the gray screen, but no logon screen ever pops ups. The mouse moves, but outside of this, the system is totally unresponsive.

 

[ncotton]

A La Safe Mode?

Hope this Helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant

 

[MoobyCow]

You might want to enable verbose logging:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325376

Even if it fails to startup completely if you can then restart in Safe mode you might be able to figure out what is hanging up.

The log file, userenv.log, will be written into the %windir%\debug folder. This folder is a hidden folder.

 

[Tyras]

restarting in safe mode and using Last Known Good have produced no results. Still gets to the gray screen and the logn prompt fails to appear.

MoobyCow- I am unable to log in or make any changes whatsoever on this server, and from what i read on the provided link it will involve registry changes. Is this something I may be able to do from teh Recovery Console? if so, how does this work?

thanks for all the help so far
Tyras M

 

[MoobyCow]

You can't edit the registry from the Recovery Console, but you can do it using BartsPE:

http://65.24.134.81/KipSolutions/BootableCDrom/BartsPE.htm

You'll need this RegEdit addon for Barts:

http://www.bootcd.us/BartPE_Plugin_Details/347/

 

[MoobyCow]

Here's a better link for the BartPE install:

http://www.bootcd.us/PEBuilder_tutorial.php

 

[Tyras]

Oddly enough I have this software already..forgot I had it.
I'll give this a try and report back

Tyras M