Server Rebooting itself

[mthomas08]

Well such a great thing to walk in to this morning, over the weekend I remotely did some updates and defrag. Had recently moved Home Drives from one server to another.

New server being the one that is now rebooting... So after doing the main server and restarting every server then had issues logging on. Strange I know - rebooted them all again and was fine.

 

Came in this morning our 2nd main server (new) didnt log in so i rebooted.. Now its rebooting it self - it gets up to the point where it loads the OS then you see a dark screen with the mouse and then reboots.

 

Unable to boot in to safe mode, unable to load last good config (does same thing - reboots).

 

Just doing a Mem test on it now and checking the raid but just wondering what the options are at this stage.

 

yes I have a backup - so thats sitting there thank god.

 

Now this server is a DC which I am hoping I can get back online.. Its pretty new as well.

 

I will be living on this post if anyone offers any assist its 32bit as well.

[Potato-Peeler]

Depending on the OS use the appropiate disk to do a windows repair? Im not sure if it does it on servers, but no reason why not

[Nixphoe]

I had an issue similar to this. It would boot up fine if the network cable was unplugged. I forget the exact reason, but it was checking some network stuff and that is what had caused it to crash.

 

You could also try booting up to the repair console and seeing if there is any dmp files. I'm not sure if by this point it would be just faster to rebuild it or not.

Not a lot of options at this point.

[dhicks]

just wondering what the options are at this stage.

 

Has the RAID mode changed in the BIOS at all - either from you changing it, or through it changing itself? We had a machine do that here - turns out the BIOS battery had given out and the RAID mode had reset back to default, which confused Windows.

 

Could it be duff RAM?

 

--

David Hicks

[mthomas08]

thanks for the replies, well found a little more info on the problem.

 

RAM is fine - did a test all is okay.

Managed to boot in the RAID software had a look around, I updated it all and now it seems to be doing a background initialization... 3% so far.. going to take another day.

 

Looked at system restore - for some reason it was logged back to september??? I couldnt believe it - i have scheduled to take incrementals and have even restored files from only 2 weeks ago. So anyway tried that because i was hoping the system would at least be worthy so i can get the data off but no after that still did the same thing. So I am thinking that possible a hard ware issue.

 

i have tried booting up with only a monitor in the server but still same issue. Seems to be keeping mother board settings alright So guessing the battery is okay.

 

Really not sure what to do next but I am pulling data from other backups but some of it is reliant on this 08 server backup.. which I do not get why its detecting the data from september when I my self have restored from 2 weeks ago. I am hoping the data on the server is alright so i can at least have that. I do have an older backup of a lot of the data which is a good thing if all goes pear shaped..

[Abaddon]

"background initialization"? That sounds like it's formatting the array to me - is that what you intended? Bit late now anyway I guess, but it looks like you are on re-build duty when it finishes...

[mthomas08]

No, didnt even tell it to do anything. This is getting weirder by the day!

 

If thats the case so be it.... cant cry about it now!

[mthomas08]

Well weirdly enough after that, its back to rebooting it self - again loads to windows see the mouse cursor and BAM reboots.

 

Anyone had experience with Windows 2008 backup ? I have been doing incrementals but can only access the restore date from when I 1st made the backup?

 

Surely the point of the incrementals is so you dont have to do a full backup every day and do a restore from the latest date?

 

*

Have gone back in to the RAID manament and its doing another background initialisation this time though its at 0.00% and 56756hrs to go? I am guessing that perhaps the raid controller has failed? any Raid masters here?

I am not even able to do a fresh install of windows...

Edited April 8, 2010 by mthomas08

[2097]

Whats the spec of the server ? and what is it currently doing ?? i.e. Main Server for AD ? or just for files etc

 

If it is Urgent , Id say use the latest image backup and acronis it on to a another server , a GOOD desktop or a VMware machine ?

 

You then have some time to sort out this thing.