Troubleshooting Installations | Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Administrators Companion (IT-Administrators Companion)

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In most cases, installing Windows 2000 Advanced Server is a relatively painless process; however, when setup fails for some reason or another, life gets more difficult. Fortunately, most installation problems are easily solved. The most common problems are covered here. Additional troubleshooting procedures can be found in Chapter 37.

MORE INFO
You can find additional troubleshooting help either in the Windows 2000 Help System's troubleshooters (admittedly not much good unless you have access to a functioning Windows 2000 machine) or in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, available on line through http://support.microsoft.com.

Setup Freezes or Locks Up

Sometimes Windows 2000 setup will inexplicably lock up partway through the installation process. If you receive a Stop Error message, write it down and consult either the Stop Errors troubleshooter in Windows 2000 Help or Microsoft technical support.

In general, these failures are intermittent and don't come with anything so helpful as an error message. First reboot your system by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del. Do this repeatedly, if necessary. If you get no response, press the Reset button on your computer or turn your system off, wait 10 seconds, and then turn it back on. If you see a Boot menu, choose the Windows 2000 Server Setup option to allow Windows 2000 setup to attempt to continue with its installation. If no Boot menu appears, launch setup again. In either case, don't choose to repair your installation, but instead choose to continue with setup.

Setup usually detects that an error occurred with its last attempt to install Windows 2000 and compensates by using a safer method of installation. If setup hangs or stops responding again, repeat this process. Sometimes, setup will hang multiple times before it finishes installing Windows 2000, so be persistent. If installation freezes at a particular part of setup, try choosing simpler setup options, if applicable. For example, leave out optional Windows components.

Other procedures you can use to fix setup problems are as follows.

Disable your system cache (processor cache) in your BIOS, and then run setup again. Consult your hardware documentation for information on the correct procedure to do this. Once setup is complete, enable your cache again to avoid a significant performance loss.

Try adding a wait state to your RAM in your system BIOS. This can help with partially faulty RAM chips. (However, if this server is important—and what server isn't?—plan on replacing that iffy RAM before doing any critical work on the machine.)

Verify that your RAM modules are manufactured by the same company and are of the same speed and type. While this isn't a necessity, it can often eliminate problems.

Switch the order of your RAM modules, or remove some modules and try installing again.

Test your RAM modules for faulty RAM chips with a third-party software program. Replace any faulty modules and run setup again.

Check your computer for an MBR virus by booting it from a floppy disk that has been checked for viruses, and then run a virus checking program and scan your drives for any viruses. If you find any viruses, clean them from your system and run setup again.

REAL WORLD ACPI BIOS Compatibility Problems
If setup consistently freezes during the Windows 2000–based Setup Wizard and your system has an ACPI-compatible BIOS, your BIOS may not function in ACPI mode with Windows 2000. The freezes may happen at any time during the Setup Wizard, although they most frequently happen during the device detection phase. If you suspect your BIOS isn't working properly with Windows 2000, download the latest version from your system vendor.
If you still have troubles, or if there is no updated BIOS available, try disabling ACPI during setup by pressing F5 at the beginning of the text-mode phase of Setup, right after setup prompts you to press F6 to install third party storage drivers. If this doesn't solve your setup problems, you don't have a problem with the ACPI support in your BIOS. You can add ACPI support back after finishing setup by opening the Properties dialog box for your standard computer in Device Manager and using the Update Device Driver Wizard to install the ACPI PC driver; however, this might introduce system stability problems and should only be attempted if you like playing the odds.

You can also manually enable or disable ACPI support after the file copy phase of setup completes, right before your computer reboots into the Windows 2000 Setup Wizard. (Sometimes you can do this after your system freezes during the Setup Wizard.) To force Windows 2000 to enable or disable ACPI support, follow these steps:

After the text-mode phase of setup completes but before Windows 2000 reboots into the Setup Wizard, go to a command prompt.

Type attrib -r –s –h c:\txtsetup.sif at the command prompt.

Open the c:\txtsetup.sif file using the edit command or another text editor and search for "ACPIEnable=".

To force ACPI support to be enabled, which sometimes fixes setup problems, change the "ACPIEnable=" value to 1.

To disable ACPI support, change the "ACPIEnable=" value to 0.

Save the file and reboot into the Windows 2000 Setup Wizard.

Again, if any of the steps you take reveal questionable hardware, replace the hardware before you rely on the computer to store important data or provide critical functions to users.

Setup Stops During File Copying

If setup locks up while copying files, you might have a problem with IDE drive configuration.

Reboot the machine using Ctrl+Alt+Del or Reset, and go into your system BIOS. Verify that your IDE controllers are enabled and configured properly. Make sure that any IDE hard disks or CD-ROMs are detected properly. (You might have to reboot your system and watch your display to verify this because often the drives aren't displayed inside the BIOS.)

Check the physical jumper settings on your drives to make sure that they are properly configured to have one master and a maximum of one slave per IDE channel.

If your CD-ROM drive is on the same channel as your hard disk, move it to the secondary channel and configure it to master.

Try lowering the data transfer rate for your drives; for example, configure the drives to use PIO mode 2 instead of Ultra DMA mode or Ultra 66 Transfer mode.

Check to make sure that your drives are cabled correctly and that the cables aren't faulty.

Check the hardware settings to make sure that your hard disk controller isn't conflicting with another device. Try removing all cards from your computer except for your display card and SCSI adapter (if you're using a SCSI drive), and run setup again. If setup succeeds, add your cards one by one after installation, and use the Hardware Wizard in Windows 2000 to configure your devices and troubleshoot any hardware conflicts you encounter.

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Windows 2000 provides a variety of tools you can use to boot a system that doesn't want to start, including the Safe Mode and Last Known Good boot options, as well as the Recovery Mode Console, which allows you command line access to an NTFS or FAT drive that won't boot (see Chapter 36 for more information).

If none of this helps, try the recommendations in the previous section or consult the Windows 2000 Knowledge Base.

Previous OS Will Not Boot

When you install Windows 2000 Advanced Server on a computer that's already using an operating system and you choose not to upgrade, setup creates a dual boot so that you can select which operating system you'd like to use at boot time.

If your computer never displays the Windows 2000 Loader menu that allows you to choose your previous operating system, the problem is most likely one of two issues: either your boot.ini file has a timeout set to 0 (and thus doesn't display the Boot menu), or your MBR was overwritten during setup, preventing you from booting your previous operating system even if you have the proper entry in your boot.ini file.

To restore the ability to boot your other operating system(s), first back up your hard disk with a Windows 2000 backup program that saves the system state information (such as Windows 2000's bundled Backup utility). Create an emergency repair disk, also using Backup, and then follow these steps:

Restart your computer, and press the Spacebar after your BIOS screens are displayed and as soon as you see dots displayed at the top of your screen. This displays the Hardware Profile/Configuration Recovery screen.

Press F3 to display the Windows 2000 Loader screen with no timeout value.

Select your previous operating system, and press Enter to boot into it.

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You can also change the timeout setting by opening the Control Panel's System applet in Windows 2000, clicking the Advanced tab, clicking Startup And Recovery, then selecting the Display List Of Operating Systems For checkbox and setting the number of seconds you want the boot menu displayed.

If this works and you want to display the Windows 2000 Loader automatically, change the timeout value in your boot.ini file to a value higher than 0. To do so, follow these steps:

At a command prompt either in Windows 2000 (if your boot drive is formatted with NTFS) or in MS-DOS (boot from a floppy disk), type the following command:

attrib -r –s –h c:\boot.ini

edit c:\boot.ini

Change the timeout value from 0 to the number of seconds that you want your system to display the Windows 2000 Loader screen before automatically booting. (The default is 30 seconds.)

Save and exit Edit, and then type the following command:

attrib +r +s +h c:\boot.ini

Reboot your computer normally.

If your computer doesn't have a boot.ini file, you can use or modify one of the boot.ini files included on the companion CD, or create one from scratch. The following is a sample boot.ini file. For an explanation of this file, see Table 5-6.

 [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 Server" /fastdetect multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1) \WINNT="Windows 2000 Professional (Parallel Install)" /fastdetect

Table 5-6. The key variables in a boot.ini file

Variable	What It Describes
Timeout	Number of seconds to display the Windows 2000 Loader menu.
Default	Location of default operating system to boot.
Multi	Hard disk controller number and type being used. Replace with scsi parameter for drives connected to a SCSI controller with its BIOS disabled.
Disk	Disk number on which the operating system resides. This value will always be 0 for IDE drives, but will be the SCSI ID of a SCSI drive.
rdisk	Disk number on which the operating system resides. For IDE drives, this will be the ordinal number of the drive, starting at 0. For a SCSI disk, this will always be zero.
Partition	Partition number on which the operating system resides. Numbering begins at 1.
\WINNT	Path to operating system on the specified partition.
"Windows 2000 Server"	Name of operating system displayed in the Windows 2000 Loader Boot menu. Can be anything.

CAUTION
Creating a boot.ini file incorrectly can cause a system not to boot. Don't perform this procedure unless you have a current backup, a working boot disk that can access all necessary resources on your computer (test the disk first!), along with your Windows 2000 Installation CD, setup boot disks, and a newly created Emergency Repair Disk.

When you create your boot.ini file, make sure you use the correct drive and partition number or your system won't boot. Once you've modified or created your boot.ini file, copy it to the root folder of your boot drive and restart your computer. When the Windows 2000 Loader menu appears, select the operating system you want to load and press Enter.

NOTE
Partitions are numbered in the following manner: The first primary partition on each disk is numbered 1. Additional primary partitions are numbered 2 and up. Any logical drives are numbered based on the order in which they appear in Windows 2000.

If the operating system you have trouble booting is Windows NT or Windows 2000, you can use a switch in the [Operating Systems] section of the boot.ini file to aid in your troubleshooting. Table 5-7 describes switches you can use.

Table 5-7. Operating system troubleshooting switches

Switch	Explanation
/basevideo	Boot using the standard VGA driver. Useful if you're having display trouble.
/sos	Display on screen each driver as it loads during kernel load phase. Useful in determining whether a driver is causing your boot failure.
/noserialmice	Turns off the detection of serial mice. Can add =COMX only to eliminate the detection of serial mice on a specific COM port.
/crashdebug	Turns on the Automatic Recovery and Restart feature.
/maxmem:n	Limits amount of memory to "n" megabytes. Useful in troubleshooting memory parity errors.
/scsiordinal:n	Assigns number 0 to the first SCSI controller and 1 to the second.

If you can't boot either operating system properly, you need to eliminate your newly created boot.ini file. Boot your computer using the Recovery Mode Console or a boot disk, type the following lines at a command prompt, and then reboot your system.

attrib -r –s –h c:\boot.ini

del boot.ini

If the operating system doesn't boot properly, you might need to re-create the MBR for the operating system that you had previously installed. This is risky business, so reread the caution, and make sure that you have the time to reinstall your operating system and restore a backup if you run into trouble. To recreate the MBR for your previous operating system, follow these steps.

Boot your computer with a boot disk for the operating system you are unable to boot. (Make sure the disk contains the Sys.com file.)

Type the following at the command prompt to transfer your system files from your floppy disk to the hard disk: A:\sys c:

NOTE
If this step doesn't work on your operating system, transfer your system files the way your operating system allows, or try using any MBR repair utilities bundled with your operating system.

Remove your floppy disk and reboot your computer. Verify that the operating system you wanted to repair boots properly before performing the next step.

Boot Windows 2000 by using your Windows 2000 CD-ROM or setup boot disks.

When Windows 2000 setup launches, press Enter to begin, and then press "R" to repair an existing installation.

Press "R" again, and then press "M" to perform a manual repair.

Clear all check boxes except for the Inspect Boot Sector box. Then press Enter.

Insert your emergency repair disk when prompted, or press Esc to have setup search for your Windows 2000 installation.

When setup is finished repairing your MBR, reboot your computer and choose the appropriate operating system from the Windows 2000 Loader menu.