NT Startup Problems

Hmmmmm. You are in a tough situation. Is file system NTFS or FAT? Either way, you will have to use a DOS boot disk (or NTFS-DOS boot disk). Not a guarantee to work, but get into your C: (probably c:) and delete the folder containing one of your Anti-virus apps. For example: If you have Norton, the default location would be Program files\symantec. Another way would be to try to delete the exe's from STARTUP. However, it has been a while since I have worked with NT...so I forget where that is. I think it was C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\STARTUP?

I am unsure. I have fixed many BSOD's via DOS. Thank God for DOS! Hope this helps a bit...

You may and try and repair window nt from the install disk or reinstall. It really depends on what the blue screen error says is causing the problem. Your best bet may be to start over (if there is not important data on the computer). Otherwise you are fighting a blue screen error and then after that two viruses.

Good Luck!

At what point in the startup do you get the BSOD?

You didn't mention if you tried the safe startup option. Try that if not.

Another thing to try if you have the disk space is to install another copy of NT on the system into a new directory anduse that copy to delete all files associated with the AV softwares. You may get error messages when you restart your original install but these will be related to residual registry entries for the AV software. You will need to use regedt32 or regedit to search and destroy the AV software entries (be very careful!!!)

good luck...

The usual approach for this type of problem would be a parallel installation of NT and then using regedt32 from the parallel installation to fix the registry in the original installation. Once you disable the services that are keeping NT from starting, you can just boot back into the original install, fix the boot.ini and be home free.

Microsoft has an article on their TechNet site (Q165748) that describes the process in more detail.

paul

1. Boot from DOS disk on A: Drive
2. Goto C:\Program Files\norton (or whatever your antivirus is).
3. Rename all application .exe files to .eee. Restart server.
4. It will prompt about errors & unable to load Norton etc. Ignore them.
5. Login as Admin into your server.
6. Now rename the .eee files back to .exe.
7. Run the config file for the antivirus & remove the "Startup" tag fro both.
8. Uninstall one of them.
9. Voila !! You are done, up and running now
Akash

One way you may get over this, is to start up in vga mode. This is like starting in safe mode in 98. It only loads drvers necessary to start up. You can then uninstall one or both of your virus programs in the normal way through ADD/Remove Programs. Once this is done reboot in the normal way and everything should be ok.
Hope this helps.

Been there, done that!! Actually my problem was a conflict between Antigen and Norton.

Go to www.winternals.com and purchase a copy of ERD. This will give you an emergency rescue disk set that will allow you to boot to a command prompt AND access your NTFS drives. It is a little pricy, but well worth it -- I have used mine about five times already.

From the c:\, type in Registry to load the registry, and type Service to list all the services. You can then disable the necessary services for the antivirus software (see the Help file for details). As an added bonus, you can also load a prior registry from either the hard drive or a floppy recovery disk if the registry is trashed.

ERD is an essential program in every tech's toolbox. Without it, the only real option is reinstalling and restoring.