logon dialog loop

[Rebus]

A Win2kSP4 peer-to-peer system with NTFS partition suffered a blue
screen crash during a file copy operation. Now, when the admin username
and password are entered in the logon dialog, the screen goes black for
about 30 seconds, then returns to the logon dialog. Enter again and it
returns almost instantly. No error message -- just caught in a loop.
The same happens in Safe mode. Ideas?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

- Check the access permissions of userinit.exe. It must be accessible
to all users.
- Using regedt32.exe on the peer machine, ensure that the key
HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/Current Version/Winlogon/Userinit
points to where the file actually resides.

 

[Rebus]

Problem is, the Remote Registry Service is disabled. What I do notice,
however, is that I can no longer connect to C$, but can connect to D$.
But what was D drive is no longer in the machine -- I removed it and
installed it in another machine to attempt recovery of the recent bkf
backup file for C drive (it was corrupted). So somehow, the logical C
drive got changed to D drive, which probably explains the logon problem.
Files on C, now D, appear to be intact.

Another important detail: C drive (now D) is actually a RAID1 array on
an integrated Promise controller. This means to run FDISK /MBR to force
a reset of the drive letter would probably require creating a DOS boot
disk with NTFSDOS and a DOS RAID controller driver (though it doesn't
appear that one exists -- only 9x/2k/XP).

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

What you write supports my suspicion: Your drive letters are
confused, hence the logon process can no longer locate
userinit.exe. The usual remedy is to copy this file to \winnt\system32
on all existing partitions. Whether it works on a machine that lacks
drive C: remains to be seen. I would use psexec.exe
(www.sysinternals.com) do hop onto the problem machine and
check out its drive assignment.

Another way that often works consists of temporarily installing
a formatted slave disk (any size will do!) and copying userinit.exe
onto it.

 

[Rebus]

I found that sysinternals had a utility called PSService that allowed me
to remotely change the RemoteRegistry service from Disabled and to start
it. Then I could remotely edit the registry to swap the drive
assignments for C: and D:
Problem solved. Thanks.