Recovering damaged w2k server after HD corruption

[Foxy1977]

HI everyone,

Just in dire need of a bit advice. I have a small network with a w2k
server and 10 clients. I had to restart my server the other day and i
ended up with a blue screen crash on the restart saying inaccessible
boot device.

Eventually after a bit i ended up taking the drive out of the server
out the machine and putting it in another PC to run chkdsk on it.
This found a number of errors on the drive and corrected them. I did
notice that a lot of the corrupt files were on the DLL files. This
seemed to sort out some of the problems as the drive would now boot
into w2k server (and a hell of a lot quicker!).

I am left with a major problem which i need your advice and help with!

I decided to buy a new drive and clone the partition onto a new stable
harddrive to put back into the PC.

On putting the drive back into the server we i get to the desktop i am
unable to open any windows. When i click on the My Computer icon the
window appears and tries to open, saying 3 object on the status bar,
but doesnt show up any icons. The window then closes itself and the
machine drops down to the desktop. As you can guess this is gonna
cause me major problems. It appears the services and other things are
running ok on server but i am unable to do anything else.

I have since tried the repair option hoping this would replace the
damage system files and fix the problem but this did not help solve
the problem.

I am now a bit unsure of how to solve the situation as i have not had
to rebuid a server from scratch and my client needs their server back
ASAP!!

Thanks in advance for the help.


john

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

HI everyone,

Just in dire need of a bit advice. I have a small network with a w2k
server and 10 clients. I had to restart my server the other day and i
ended up with a blue screen crash on the restart saying inaccessible
boot device.

Eventually after a bit i ended up taking the drive out of the server
out the machine and putting it in another PC to run chkdsk on it.
This found a number of errors on the drive and corrected them. I did
notice that a lot of the corrupt files were on the DLL files. This
seemed to sort out some of the problems as the drive would now boot
into w2k server (and a hell of a lot quicker!).

I am left with a major problem which i need your advice and help with!

I decided to buy a new drive and clone the partition onto a new stable
harddrive to put back into the PC.

On putting the drive back into the server we i get to the desktop i am
unable to open any windows. When i click on the My Computer icon the
window appears and tries to open, saying 3 object on the status bar,
but doesnt show up any icons. The window then closes itself and the
machine drops down to the desktop. As you can guess this is gonna
cause me major problems. It appears the services and other things are
running ok on server but i am unable to do anything else.

I have since tried the repair option hoping this would replace the
damage system files and fix the problem but this did not help solve
the problem.

I am now a bit unsure of how to solve the situation as i have not had
to rebuid a server from scratch and my client needs their server back
ASAP!!

Thanks in advance for the help.


john

Seeing that this is a server, and that your clients expect a high
degree of reliability and availability, I think that nothing other
than a rebuild will do. The old system is compromised and
might throw up all sorts of weird problems.

After rebuilding the server, get a copy of an imaging program
such as Acronis and take a snapshot of the server disk. Store
the snapshot file on some other hard disk that you keep well
away from the server. Update the snapshot once every six
months, and before any significant installation, keeping at
least two old copies. This method allows you to restore a
server onto a new disk in less than one hour.

Taking snapshots implies that you use drive C: for your
OS and applications, and that all data is stored on a
different drive. You should never mix the two anyway.

 

[Guest]

Hi, do you happen to have a RAID controller on this server? It would be easy
for you to repair the damage hard drive if you have this hardware?

Did you use Powerquest Drive Image to clone or simply Ghost?