Windows 2000 Server hangs on Dell 4600

[BookerG]

My Dell 4600 Server had a power failure and shutdown abruptly. Ever since then it will not boot past the "Windows 2000 Server loading" splash screen.

I can boot into safe mode however. There are no warnings in the device manager at all. Also I disabled all non essential services in the Services section and that didn't work. I tried a Emercency repair and agian it didn't work.

Short of reinstalling the OS is there anything else I could try? I suspect a driver failing to load but it is almost impossible to figure out what.

The Server has a SCSI driven Dell PowerVault 120T tape backup attached to it. Here is some of the software: Norton, ArcServe, Domino, Praetor.

Everything was fine before the power outage.

Any suggestions before I have to restage this thing, I would hatte to go through all that mess to find out it was a tape drive driver?


Thanks

 

[speedracercjr]

4600 is a pretty beefy server, did the backup power supply not take over?

 

[BookerG]

Well it was hooked up to a Remote Power Unit. Both power supplies. That was hooked up to a UPS which blew, therefore both power supplies were cutoff. I know...big mistake but now I still have a broken server.

 

[speedracercjr]

Dang that sucks, well i agree that its probably some driver that won't load, you could always do a parallel installation and reload your last known good system configuartion backup. it sucks but it works

 

[BookerG]

I have never performed a parallel install before, is it easier? Where would the install (directory and volume) take place?

After it is done will the apps need to be reloaded?

 

[ricpinto]

If you can safe mode boot then disable the devices that the system doesn't need for booting up, like NIC, sound card, the on board SCSI controller that tape drive was connected, serial port for UPS etc. Boot up normally if successful 1 by 1 you you enable devices until you can isolate the problem. After that reload the driver of the particular device if it works then is OK but if not then that device maybe got particular hardware problem.

 

[tlcscousin]

Have you looked in event viewer for an error?
Enable Boot Logging Press F8 when booting windows, and
select Enable Boot Logging. Afterwards look at the log in file bootlog.txt in c

 

[Sleigher]

FutureTech's right - go with bootlogging, the last entry should tell you where it's hanging.
Did you run a scandisk at all? (Without /f, just to see if there any disk problems - some part of your registry may be corrupt)
If it boots into safe mode then your servers got a 90% chance of recovery. It's just a matter of finding out which component is damaged and reinstalling it.
If emergency repair didn't work, then I can only think that perhaps a hardware component (like video/LAN/MB etc.) got slightly fried in some weird way which is causing it to hang.
What about Last known good config? I don't think it's overwritten in safe mode...

 

[BookerG]

Thanks Everyone, I had someone try to perform a recovery of the server however they are getting all sorts of erros trying to re-install windows.

By the way I did Enable Boot Logging and it came up with a mixed bag of devices not loading. It doesn't stop at any particular point, it looks like it loads some and not others. They are working with Dell right now to determine if it isn't a particular device or Hardware componant. I suspect the server was not right in the first place and the power outage exploited the flaw. It exhibited this type of behaviour before however not to this degree.

Thanks Again.