[LC2000] no boot

[jeremie begoin]

hello

I got a problem with my lc2000 server who doesn't boot anymore now, without any reason.

The NT server was working well and, suddenly, a black screen appear what come back on each reboots.

I flashed the Bios with latest version, cleared the CMOS with both F11 on boot and switch 5, repaired the boot sectors with the NT CD (following MS directives) with no more results.

There is only one 9 Gb SCSI disk, the onboard Symbios 53C896 and no raid controlers.

to be honest, i'm a bit lost :)

[Marino Meloni_1 · Accepted solution]

if you get the F2 prompt, your system is booting, could you specify where/when you get the black screen, and what is the last message you get?
Do you get a missing OS? does your system boot on the navigator?, booting from a dos floppy, and running fdisk command, do you see a hdd? and a partition, is this partition active?

marino

[jeremie begoin]

sorry :)

the black screen is just before the launching of NT (instead of the choice of the NT Version), with a "_" blinking on the upper right of the screen.

The system can boot on any bootable CD.

For example, if I boot with the NT CD, I can see the "/winnt" installation and i can repair it(first thing I made) or upgrade it.

But, after the reboot following the first step of an upgrade/a reparation, the black screen is always back.

there are three partitions (C [system], D and E) and I need to recover datas from D and E..

Is it possible to use the navigator CD to re-install (or to repair/upgrade) the NT Server without damaging importants datas ?

[Marino Meloni_1]

1) try resetting the managment bios by disconnecting the server from power (disconnect also monitor, lan cable, parallel, and serial cable, and keyborad/mouse if connected to switchconsole, for five minuts.

2) reset bios with F

2) boot form a dos bootable floppy and run fdisk and check if you can see the hdd

3) check if the first partition is active (letter (A) in front of the partition) or activate it

4) if after a reboot the disk do not start, run again bootable dos floppy and run the undocumented commant: FDISK / MBR

5) reboot server and see if it boot.

6) if server do not reboot yet, you can try to make a parallel installation on the C partition , the data will be available, but not the programs, you will need to reinstall all the system.

7) another action to recover data is to boot from a second HDD, connected with a lower scsi id and with W2k installed on it, when booted from this disk, the NTFS partition of the original disk will be available.

8) you can use linux bootable disk and mount NTFS partition to recover data, there is lots of these forensic cd image iin internet


marino

[jeremie begoin]

thanks a lot for these answers.

As adviced, after "cleaning" the BIOS, I made a bootable floppy disk.
I could use successfully fdisk where the system partition where active.
I also used the fdisk /mbr command.

The black screen came back again. I Tried to install another Windows NT Server, but after the rebbot following the first part of the installation, the black screen was still there.

Can I Use the Navigator CD To re-install a NT server (maybe is it different that install NT directly by the NT CD) without loosing datas ?

Can It be a hardware failure somewhere ? A problem on the 53C896 ?

Thanks again.

[Marino Meloni_1]

I do not think it may may be a hardware failure, because you can write the MBR, and the disk is seen in FDisk, the first menu is in text mode and do not use any specific drive yet, that will be loaded during OS boot time.

try this:

create a Fault tolerant booting floppy disk:

go to a second server with same os, insert a floppy disk and make a full format of it(no quick format)

Copy the following files from the root folder of your system partition to the floppy disk you just formatted:

â ¢ NTLDR â Windows NT boot loader program.

â ¢ Boot.ini â describes the location of the boot partitions, specified by using Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) naming conventions.

â ¢ Ntdetect.com â used for hardware detection.

Boot form the floppy disk and see if you can access your system patition (you may need to modify the bootini if the partition are not the same as the server where you copy this file)

let me know if

[jeremie begoin]

wow !!! great !!! It works !!

Witch the disk, I can boot on the NT System. Datas are alle there, and the old installation (repaired) too !!!

Thanks a lot, again (and again, and again ;) !!)

[Marino Meloni_1]

Nice that you could recover your data. what about assigning some point? ;-))

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#28