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NT4sp6 WS self-reboots BEFORE login! What2Do?

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Giselle

Technical User
Jul 24, 2001
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(This is my 3rd attempt to post this -- I originally put it in the server forum, which was mistake).

It hasn't been a quiet week in this Lake Woebegone ...
I wanted to upgrade a perfectly functioning WinNT4 (patched to 6) WS to Win2k. But of course, there wasn't enuf room on C drive ... so, I started getting rid of non-essentials, moving files -- stuff I've done carefully, thoroughly, etc., zillions of times (have been working w/PCs since days of ol' Apple II & 16k!) -- all is well. I find there's still a copy of Symantec's pcAnywhere on the machine, so I innocently go thru it's uninstall routine (after all _I_ had put it on the PC 2 years ago ...), BAD move. Machine won't reboot. I search on web, find this is indeed a bug, I install a 2nd copy of NT, required drivers, patch it to 6 (this works fine) and proceed to drastically patch the registry (error message was couldn't find display_driver.dll) -- and I succeed (elaborate patch routine on Symantec AND Microsoft to fix the ..GINA chain)-- but NOW the login screen comes up (we have a Novell 5 server, that's fine, other PCs login just fine), BUT before I can do C-A-D, <poof> it reboots way down to hardware level (wants to do a mem check) and then has to do a chkdsk, because it thinks the C drive is corrupted, which it is not.

So ... what to do? Start over, rebuild entire PC, now with Win2k, OR is there some trick thing in the registry that, if I change it, all will be well again? There is software etc. on this PC, which, I can indeed get off, etc. But it's just a pain. I liked it as it was. Have done some Win2k upgrades that were just peachy & all worked as before. Which was what I had expected to do now.

PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME!!!! This is for my church, it's been my community service-type volunteer project since late 1999, all has been well 'til now ...

TIA & blessings on your head!

Suzanne
 
Hey Gisellesuzanne,

You've been thorough. I hope there is a better post, as this may be chancy.

MS says 'it' does not NT, and GOOGLING on it seems to indictate that it is fine for NT4, so as a lwast resort, Emergency/boot diskettes and try Scanreg /fix /opt.

A meritorious question is whether SCANREG.EXE is hiding on your NT somewhere, some posts indicates it is an NT shipped item.

About it.


If prayer is effective, we won't mention MS, it might work, but first, wait a bit for more informed posts.

On 9x i've seen registries resurrected by Scanreg.

Last resort. If it is shipped on NT, I do not think it can harm the current situation (wry grin).

Luck,
J
 
Well, trouble is, I never created an ERD ... in 4 years of working with NT, editing registries day in & day out relating to Oracle (my real job is a db architect), I have never before had a corrupted registry -- I was always really, really, really careful -- I never needed an ERD ... so ... am going to try to create one with the PC I am typing this from. Maybe it will work. Creating an NT boot disk from this PC didn't help, boot-reboot-loop occurred with THAT as well, which means the problem must really BE in the registry somewhere ... something has hooked into the boot gate (is it A20??? I work at the hardware registry level so little, I dunno) and if I only knew what to search for, I bet I could turn it off, there are a zillion interesting gems IN the registry, but ya hafta know what a gem looks like first. Sigh.

I think I'll have to rebuild. Users are just back from a missionary trip to Kenya & not happy. Sigh.

Tx,

Suzanne

(PS -- I chose 'Giselle' as my handle an age ago, but it's too hard of an alias to keep straight somehow...)
 
Well, trouble is, I never created an ERD ... in 4 years of working with NT, editing registries day in & day out relating to Oracle (my real job is a db architect), I have never before had a corrupted registry -- I was always really, really, really careful -- I never needed an ERD ... so ... am going to try to create one with the PC I am typing this from. Maybe it will work. Creating an NT boot disk from this PC didn't help, boot-reboot-loop occurred with THAT as well, which means the problem must really BE in the registry somewhere ... something has hooked into the boot gate (is it A20??? I work at the hardware registry level so little, I dunno) and if I only knew what to search for, I bet I could turn it off, there are a zillion interesting gems IN the registry, but ya hafta know what a gem looks like first. Sigh.

I think I'll have to rebuild. Users are just back from a missionary trip to Kenya & not happy. Sigh.

Tx,

Suzanne

(PS -- I chose 'Giselle' as my handle an age ago, but it's too hard of an alias to keep straight somehow...)
 
And of course, my earlier reply said there was an error, so I thot it didn't post & it posted twice! What is it???? I feel like Joe Btsspfk in Lil'Abner ...

The MS article has to do with ME & 98, and this is NT. And, IAE, there's not 'scanreg.exe' on the PC.

Any other ideas?

TIA, Tx Mucho!

Suzanne
 
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