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NT4 Server Won't Boot

S

SwampsterFL

Member
I am running Winnt 4.0 Server w/SP5.

A secretary took it upon herself to install a program on the server called Calyx Pint 3.9, which is a finance program, if that makes any difference.

As noted in the Quick Setup instructions, the first thing it did was check the version of Internet Explorer that was installed because it requires a minimum of 5.01. It found that it was older than that and stated that it needed to install the newer version. This was expected, so she clicked on OK (the only choice anyway <sigh>), and it proceeded to install v5.5.

Now, v6.0 is specific to the operating system, in other words, if you have Win98 it installs one subversion and if you have WinME it installs another. I mention this because it may be relavant to the results.

In any case it then rebooted and was supposed to continue with the install process on its own.

It finds the SCSI HDD and boots as far as the desktop color, which you see for about 2 seconds then you get a BSOD that states:

Stop: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Windows Logon Process system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0x00000080
The system has been shut down.

I tried to do a repair install from the OEM WinNT4 CD and it gets to the point where it doesn't recognize my on the motherboard SCSI controller, so I feed it a floppy. It then sees the controller, but doesn't see the SCSI HDD . . . only the CD and the SCSI controller. The BIOS sees it, and I can boot to a Win98 floppy and it reads C: because it is a FAT drive, but, of course can't read the D: partition as it is NTFS.

Any ideas on how to recover the OS from here?
 
A Stop: c000021a is a notoriously difficult STOP to recover from.

First question: do you have any remote control software (PC anywhere, etc.) on the machine?

Second question: when's your most recent backup? (I heard that. Shame on you!)

To repair the dead OS you're going to at the least need a parallel install on there.

 
Nogginboink,

Yes, pcAnywhere is in this server, but it is not set to launch at boot as it is a secondary method of connection and used infrequently.

There is a recent backup, but I am not familiar enough to say if it is a full system backup or just an incremental data backup . . . I'm also not sure how to access it if I can't boot the system. (I can boot to DOS with a Win98 disk and the boot drive is accessible) As further information, the HDD is a SCSI-2 IBM drive running off channel one of an onboard Adaptec 7890 chip, and the Seagate tape backup is running off the secondary channel. I can see both devices when I boot, and it definitely is able to see the hard drive or it wouldn't get as far as it does.

Having thought about it over the weekend, it dawned on me what the problem might be. The software's install routine had just installed Internet Explorer 5.5 over whatever was there originally, and may have installed the Win9x version instead of the WinNT version. Also, step next was that the installation of the program itself was supposed to restart automatically when the system rebooted, and it occured to me that as the error statement is saying "the Windows Logon Process system process was unexpectedly interupted . . . ", that maybe it is telling us that the command to go back to their install routine is being given when it is trying to do necessary stuff like start the domain server and the remote access server and all such as that and this kills the NT Server logon process.

On calling the software company, they didn't seemed to be very will versed in the NT Server environment, and if this follows through to their development department where the actual code is written, then there is a possibility they didn't accommodate for the fact that the error trapping abilities of this OS are considerably less than they are in later versions (like Win2K or WinXP Pro) and thus they didn't write their own.

With this theory in mind, where might the command to resume the installation routine be written in the various different startup files that NT Server uses?
 
Noggin is right. We had a similiar problem with our PDC when we installed the Security Roll up Package for WinNT. It turned out to be two problems: Remotely Possible was installed on the server and it had replaced the MSGINA.DLL with another one. The other problem was an old Compaq RAID array controller we didn't choose to update. When we called Microsoft they suggested we do a parrallel install and boot into that to fix the original install. We kept the other install on there just incase of another problem.
 
I can't do a repair install as it finds the CD-ROM and the Adaptec SCSI controller, but doesn't find the SCSI HDD. By parallel install, are you suggesting I mirror the drive onto an IDE drive, do an repair install, then mirror it back to the SCSI drive? In other words, I am not familiar with the term "parallel installation".
 
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