Win2000 Login Problems

[Fallen Kell]

Ok, so my system crashes for the first time last week (only after I was forced to load SP4). When I booted it back up, I get one of the "One or more services could not be started. Please use the Event Viewer to determine which service is having difficulties." error popup. And then the login screen is never loaded (you know the screen that says "Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to login").

Since I can't log in, I can't view the event log to determine the problem. And since the recovery console can not view the event log either, I don't know what service I need to put on auto that was somehow disabled/corrupted by the crash. I really don't feel like reloading the OS, but it is probably the only solution unless someone here knows what service the login screen needs to start up.

 

[Unforgiven]

try booting into safe mode and see if the screen comes up when you trying going that route.

 

[spyordie007]

if it's network connected you could also view the event log remotely to see if you can find out the cause that way.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Originally posted by: Unforgiven
try booting into safe mode and see if the screen comes up when you trying going that route.

First thing I tried....

Origionally posted by: spyordie007
if its network connected you could also view the event log remotely to see if you can find out the cause that way.

Not if you disable remote administration which I have for security reasons. And since I can't log in to re-enable remote administration, I can't view the log...


Any other ideas?

 

[mikecel79]

You can try doing a repair of Windows.

 

[Sianath]

Swap the system/software registry hives with the versions in the winnt/repair folder (or repair/regback if you have it) from the recovery console. Then boot into Windows and do whatever you like. If it's a specific service, use regedit to load your old hive, change the start settings, and then swap them old ones back in via the Recovery Console and boot back up.



If you search this forum, you'll find quite a few posts where I give details on the process. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll type them out for you.

 

[SeTeS]

This sounds like a problem I had on a couple of client's notebooks last month. Both were running win2k and both started locking up during boot. Safe mode wouldn't work either.

I ended up isolating it to something happening during Windows Update (their systems were set to dl and install automatically).

Oddly enough, here's how I had to get into windows to uninstall the updates:

Restart computer and press F8 during boot to bring up boot options.

Select Safe Mode Command Prompt (or whatever it's called).

System should boot to command prompt. At the prompt, type explorer.exe then [enter].

This should get you to the desktop. Not sure why 'safe mode' wouldn't work, but this would.

Uninstall the last few windows updates via Add/Remove programs.

Reboot in normal mode.

-maybe- this will help. After I got the notebooks booting normally again, I tried reinstalling said updates one by one and the system ended up locking up again. I haven't investigated the problem beyond that.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Originally posted by: Sianath
Swap the system/software registry hives with the versions in the winnt/repair folder (or repair/regback if you have it) from the recovery console. Then boot into Windows and do whatever you like. If it's a specific service, use regedit to load your old hive, change the start settings, and then swap them old ones back in via the Recovery Console and boot back up.



If you search this forum, you'll find quite a few posts where I give details on the process. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll type them out for you.

I'll give this a try, but from what I remember (well this is from pre 2k days) it only stores the last 3-5 successful boots, and since it "does" boot, the regestry cab files in the backup areas would have been replaced already from the amount of times I have tried to boot the system. Unless you mean trying to back-out the SP4 patch, but I am not sure if that was the culprit or not since it made it through the initial reboot from installing the patch and one more reboot once Office 2003 was installed (which was the reason for SP4 being forced on me to begin with). I will take a look and see if the dates on the cab files are from before when the problem started or not, but I suspect that they have been continually updated because it makes it through the boot process and the initialization process...unless it copies the registry after you actually log in for the first time after a reboot, I believe I am screwed in that aspect....

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: SeTeS
This sounds like a problem I had on a couple of client's notebooks last month. Both were running win2k and both started locking up during boot. Safe mode wouldn't work either.
I ended up isolating it to something happening during Windows Update (their systems were set to dl and install automatically).
Oddly enough, here's how I had to get into windows to uninstall the updates:
Restart computer and press F8 during boot to bring up boot options.
Select Safe Mode Command Prompt (or whatever it's called).
System should boot to command prompt. At the prompt, type explorer.exe then [enter].
This should get you to the desktop. Not sure why 'safe mode' wouldn't work, but this would.

Whoa.. you can boot into the command-line Recovery Console in W2K, and still launch the GUI from there? That's very interesting news, that's the first that I've ever heard of that, actually.

Sianath, Smilin, is this documented behavior for W2K?

 

[Fallen Kell]

Yeah I didn't know this either...I'm gonna give that a try as well since the other suggestions didn't work. I'll see if that is possible and if it is, I won't have to lay the OS over the current one and backup files... (I should probably just do that anyway because its been a year since I wipped the hard drives and put a fresh install on the disks...)