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Win NT Server Crash

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by volak_sao 1 view

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I was completely surprised to arrive at office, seeing a black screen on my NT server. The message there reads "No operating system is found". I have a backup tape using Veritas Exec.

My questions are 1) what could be a cause of this problem? 2) What is the best recovery method?

My purpose is to recover complete data before crashing, not from the tape backup which is not so updated.

Appreciate all helps.

8 replies

by curacao_dejavu

solution 1: try to use a bootdisk.
format a disk on a other similar nt server and copy the bootfiles on the disk and start the server with it.
2: put the damage harddisk as a 2nd hardisk in a other nt server and copy the data.
3: use the backup (next time take care it's updated).

causes black screen are unknown to me, at least with blue screens you have some info to work with.

Leopold

by vinnyd

Most servers are on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If a power failure cause the computer to be off for a few hours the hard drive would cool down and not boot.

Sometimes leaving the computer on so the hard drives spin will heat the drives backup and in 30 minutes or so the system will boot normally.

If that does not work you should use the NT emergency repair disk.

If you do not have one then you must try the NT repair without it.

Boot from the NT server CD and use the Repair optionto repair the current installation.

If that works you will be able to backup the current data.

by volak_sao

Leopold is right that there should should be a green screen. I forgot to say that we are running RAID5 Controller. With this what could be a solution?

by timthetoolman

Hi,

I'd guess that your raid controller went south for winter. The disks themselves may be ok if you're lucky.

What does the POST look like? Does the controller do a self test?

re: Recovery... Tricky. You can always boot with a floppy to DOS but you'll have to get the raid controllers drivers onto it somehow if you're to have any chance of getting to the disks (Which I'm guessing you wont)

...and THEN you're likely to have NTFS on the disks anyway... so... bzzzzt!

The best way may be to beg/borrow/steal another disk, add it in and build NT. Then go from there...

Alternatively, pull the raid controller (and disks) and add them to another NT (or better) machine and go from there...

Cheers,
Tim.

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