Win2000 Server - Crash - Bad Device Drivers - Need Recovery Help

[kaziah]

Well, to make a long story short, our Windows 2000 server here at work has bit the dust.

There were a few new 'critical update' patches available through windows update, as well as an updated driver for the Adaptec 29160 SCSI adapter in the server. All 4 of the drives in the server are attached to this adapter. After the patches and driver installations finished, the server was rebooted, and now Windows 2000 will not load. A 'blue screen' now occurs each time a few moments after the 'Windows 2000 Server Family' splash screen is displayed.

I've tried:

'Last Known Good Configuration' with no luck.
'Safe Mode' with no luck.
'Safe Mode with Networking Support' with no luck

Each time it 'blue screens' in the same spot.

I can get into the Recovery Console of course, but I'm really not sure what to do from here. Also, Gross negligence has left me with no good copy of an ERD =) I am 99% sure that it is the SCSI adapter drivers that is causing the problem though.

Does anyone have any idea of what I should do? I know that I can disable/enable drivers from the Recovery Console, but I've never tried to do anything like that before. I wouldn't know where to start, or even if it would help since I'm sure the OS needs some sort of SCSI driver to boot. I figure since the install itself (a couple of years ago) required me to specify SCSI drivers so that it would recognize the drives, that Windows wouldn't have a generic set to load.

I need help, and I'm open to any ideas. I'm in over my head and, unfortunately, I'll be here for awhile... at least until I learn enough not to be =) We're a small operation with limited resources, so I just have to do the best I can with what I know and what we have until I can become more experience and we can afford more resources... like maybe a tape backup for this server!! =)

Thanks for any help,
Kaziah

[John Prophet]

never ever get drivers from msoft update, lol.

Could you go in and rename the current scsi driver and then be ready with a different one?

[kaziah]

Yeah, I think I've learned that lesson the hard way =) To be honest, I have no idea what I was thinking when I selected it. I've had previous ills from using MS driver updates. Like the 3Com driver updates for my laptop's NIC that they show. Once I installed them my mouse, of all things, would freeze for about 1 second every 10 seconds until I rolled back to the old driver version =) Sheesh... well, I do need to be slapped for this one, but I'll have to slap myself after I get it fixed =) Right now I'm too busy biting my fingernails =)

No, I'm not very familiar with the Recovery Console. I don't even know the name of the driver files to go in and rename them =( Is there some place I could look for that info or a place to go to find out? I'm pretty much clueless on this, as you can tell =)

[kaziah]

I'm about to go to bed too, I've been working on this for awhile now, and reading about the Recovery Console options. I think I'll just go to bed and start back at it in the morning. I hate to leave them hanging, but I do need precious, sweet, sweet, sleeeeeeeeep =) The data that's on this server they can float without for about a day, maybe two, but after that I'll be up the creek.

Thanks to anyone who posts, I'll check back early in the morning.

Good Night,
Kaziah

[kaziah]

Bummer, no more help yet =)

[imac9556]

hey,
go to this site:

http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBG/TIP3200/rh3201.htm

It lists the functions and commands to use in recovery console. I see that there is also one function where you can access the hard drive..looks kinda like dos... try that, and good luck
thanks, paul

[kaziah]

Ah, cool resource. At least I know more about the commands in the Recovery Console now! =) I was wondering how to use those disable/enable commands. Thanks a bunch!

I still haven't made it any further yet though... if I can't figure out something soon, I may just have to wipe it and re-install. I really hate to do that, but I figure if I pull one of the mirrored drives out and re-install on the remaining system drive, I can always drop the other one back in after the install is finished, and then pull the data I need off of it before I wipe it and re-create the mirrored set.

Thanks,
Kaziah

[kaziah]

Well, still no luck so far... =(

Here’s what I’m considering though… let me know what you think:

First I’m going to pop open the case and remove one of the drives that was part of the ‘system’ mirrored set. That way I still have one copy to work with if none of this works out.

Then I have a couple of options I was thinking of trying:

1) Install right over top of the old Win2000 Server installation and try to recover the data I need after the install completes. If things are sketchy, I can always blast the server and start over after I make sure I’ve got the data I need backed up.

AND/OR

2) I could use a ‘live’ linux distro like Knoppix STD to boot from, and then attempt to mount the NTFS volume in linux. After I find the data I need, I could upload it to our NetWare 5.1 server by using the Java based web interface via a web browser. After the data is recovered, I can blast the drive and re-install the server. Then after I’m sure everything is working with our library software, and we verify that we have everything we need, I can re-install the other drive that I pulled out and recreate the RAID1 set.

So, does either of those sound like a better idea than the other? …or is there a reason I shouldn’t try one of them?

Thanks guys,
Kaziah