Disaster Recovery: If Your System Does Not Start

If you are performing a disaster recovery and after restoring your data and restarting the recovering system, the system does not successfully start:

1. Contact Customer Service immediately for assistance.

2. Identify and follow the appropriate procedure from those provided below, based on your computer's symptoms.

Symptoms

Identify and click the symptom displayed by your computer:

• Your system is displaying a message that the file system32\ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt. The message is similar to the following (your Windows installation directory and the operating system may be different):

  Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
  Winnt\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
  Please re-install a copy of the above file.

• During the restart, your system hangs with the Windows splash screen displayed.

Message that ntoskrnl.exe is missing/corrupt

This message indicates that the boot drive value (i.e., the number of the partition that the computer will boot from, for example partition(1)) specified in the restored boot.ini file does not match the computer's  current disk partitioning.

Customer Service will lead you through steps similar to the following (based on your system configuration):

1. On a different system, create a boot.ini file containing text similar to:

   [boot loader]
   timeout=30
   default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
   [operating systems]
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 partition1" /fastdetect
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 partition2" /fastdetect
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="Windows 2000 partition3" /fastdetect
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="Windows 2000 partition4" /fastdetect

2. Copy the newly created boot.ini file to a floppy disk.

3. On the system that won't start, start the Recovery Console:

   1. Insert the Windows installation CD.

   2. Restart the computer.

   3. When prompted, choose to repair/recover the system.

   4. When prompted, choose to start the Recovery Console.

4. Copy the current boot.ini and name it boot.ini.bad.txt (using the Copy command).

5. Display the contents of the current boot.ini file and check the partition number it is currently trying to boot from (using the Type command).

6. Copy the newly created boot.ini file from the floppy disk to the computer's root directory, overwriting the current boot.ini file.

7. Remove the Windows CD and restart the computer, selecting the first boot partition option. If the computer starts successfully, you're done. If it does not start successfully, restart the computer and select the second boot partition option. Repeat until the computer starts successfully.

System hangs at Windows splash screen

Customer Service will lead you through steps similar to the following to determine why the system is hanging:

1. To determine if a NIC driver incompatibility is causing the system hang:

   1. Restart the computer.

   2. During the normal boot process, look for the following message at the bottom of the screen:

      For troubleshooting and advanced startup options for Windows 2000, press F8

      When this message is displayed, press F8. This message may only be displayed for a few moments; you must press F8 while it is displayed.

   3. From the Windows Advanced Options Menu, select Safe Mode and press ENTER.

   4. Select the partition and wait 3-5 minutes.

   5. If the system boots, we know the restore worked and that the system hang is related to a driver or other incompatibility. Continue with this procedure.

      If the system does not boot, go to step 2.

   6. To determine if the hang is due to a NIC configuration problem, boot the system again, selecting Safe Mode with Networking. If the system hangs, continue with this procedure.

      If the system boots, go to step 3.

   7. Boot the system again in Safe Mode.

   8. In Windows Device Manager, uninstall all NICs. Then select Scan for Hardware Changes.

   9. Manually configure the proper NIC drivers and configure the network card.

      Note: Allowing the system to automatically select the driver may cause the system to hang when booted.

   10. Boot the system in normal mode and ensure the network is accessible.

2. If the system fails to boot in Safe Mode, work with Customer Service to examine the last drivers being loaded at the time of the hang.

3. If the system boots in Safe Mode and boots in Safe Mode with Networking, but it does not boot normally, boot the system again selecting Enable Boot Logging. When the system hangs, wait 5 minutes, and boot into Safe Mode. Then with Customer Service examine the boot log file at %SystemRoot%\ntbtlog.txt.

Related Information

Restoring an Entire Computer