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7 Posts
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24184
September 15th, 2010 08:00
Upgrade gone bad...server will not boot in any other mode except Safe
I have a less than one month old server on which Windows Server 2008 R2 is installed. I have a 2 mirrored disk drives in there. I attempted a RAM upgrade, which did not go well possibly due to memory density issues. The server refused to even POST, so I rolled back the upgrade and installed all of the original RAM back. I should mention that I probably turned the server on and off about 12-15 times during the upgrade process due to trying different RAM combinations. After I reinstalled the original RAM, the server started up fine, but the boot screen presented me with:
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 - Secondary Plex
I chose each option after the other didn't work, but the screen would blank out at the Windows Loading progress bar. Even the Windows icon would not show up.
I then tried booting up in safe mode, which went through fine. I resynchronized the mirror drive, and then tried rebooting again, but same problem, stalled at the loading progress screen. I booted into safe mode, then removed the mirror drive, then restarted, but same issue.
I downloaded EasyBCD in safe mode then tried the option of fixing the bootloader, but same problem again.
I disconnected the 2 mirrored drives and tried to boot off a Windows Server 2008 DVD, but after it loads the files, it displays the Windows logo animation, then restarts. I don't even know where to go with this now, if it can't even boot of a DVD but has no problems booting into safe mode. I tried to also launch Repair Your Computer through the F8 console, but after it loads the files, the screen just blanks out.
Really hope there's not some hardware issue, BIOS/POST does not show any problems. Any suggestions?


reybeast1
347 Posts
0
September 15th, 2010 10:00
can you enable the windows boot logging to see if it states where the issue is?
SP21_723c7e
7 Posts
0
September 15th, 2010 11:00
sure, here is the output from yest:
reybeast1
347 Posts
0
September 15th, 2010 14:00
I forgot to ask, which model of Dell is this?
SP21_723c7e
7 Posts
0
September 15th, 2010 14:00
I switched out the RAM and tried booting up, but no go. Also tried to boot off the Dell provided Linux-based DVD that contains tools and utilities, but the screen grays out as soon as it finishes loading files.
SP21_723c7e
7 Posts
0
September 15th, 2010 15:00
PE T110
SP21_723c7e
7 Posts
0
September 16th, 2010 13:00
A Dell tech came out and replaced the mobo, ram, and CPU, and after a few reboots, the system comes up fine now. However, after I enabled Virtualization in BIOS, the system again started exhibiting the problems I had to begin with. I disabled VT and started it up again, it came up fine. I then tried to flash the BIOS as the one on the new mobo was from January 2010. I ran the installler through Windows then allowed it to restart, but the server never comes back up. I let it sit there for at least 45 minutes, then did a hard reboot. BIOS still shows the old version installed! I tried the same process again, but don't have any high hopes for it. The whole reason I bought the server was for HV VT, and now it seems to be causing this problem. Argh