Thank you in advance, I need help  now please

Try connecting to the server from another machine inthe computer management window and go to event logs and services etc to see if there are any clues there, also have you tried starting in same mode and reading the same.

If so have a lok and report back your findings.

yeah, I tried safe mode, last known good config etc but it didn`t work. No clue in the event logs. Oh! the C drive on this machine was also full which caused the freeze, I couldn`t shut it down normally everything had frozen, the only option was to maunually shut it down. After the first restart thats when the triangle appeared. I managed to clear some Temp files which freed up just over a Gig but this did not help. the Triangle kept coming back no matter what I did and its still their. Please help

help please

No I can`t logon onto the server locally or remotely.

Although the issue you had is similar to the one  am having, there is a slight difference. After booting the machine and getting to the logon screen, the windows logo apears but the box where we type in the username and password does not appear but the cusor blinks and if you type something you can see the cusor moving but you don`t see the letters. If you hit the tub the cusor disappears. if yo hit enter nothing happens, you don`t login.



After you press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to log on to a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer, the logon screen turns black. Although you cannot see what you are typing, you can successfully log on to the Windows Server 2003-based computer. Then, after you successfully log on, the screen becomes visible.

Note This symptom may occur on both the terminal server sessions and the local console. Additionally, this symptom occurs even if you start the computer in Safe mode.

Although the issue you had is similar to the one  am having, there is a slight difference. After booting the machine and getting to the logon screen, the windows logo apears but the box where we type in the username and password does not appear but the cusor blinks and if you type something you can see the cusor moving but you don`t see the letters. If you hit  tab the cusor disappears. if yo hit enter nothing happens, you don`t login.

have you tried active directory restore mode? Get the desktop and start to do some diagnostics? or restore system stte from tape?

why would I need to restore AD when its a standlone server? no tapes are available for this server, I would have done that.

Just make one of those ultimate boot disks as I described and boot from that disk... it will allow you to mount the OS and look at registry, clean up tmep file etc...
very powerful... try that first... then post some results.

Sorry, for taking so long, I have created the UBCD4WIN, but I haven`t got round to try it on the stricken server. I will be using both the UBCD4WIN and the instructions you gave me this Thursday. The server itself is working fine, after deleting Temp files and logs that were being created by a third party application running on this server. The only problem that need to be resolved is the logon screen which still remains black, which means I can`t logon to it. I will be editing the registry using the instructions that you posted. I will update you on Thursday. UBCD4WIN is just amazing, unbelievable, thanks a lot for this.

I have exported the colour registry subkey from a similar server 2003 server and imported it into the stricken server but it didn`t resolve the problem. I followed the instructions you posted and used the UBCD4WIN to import the subkey into the stricken server.
The exclamation mark in a yellow triangle still appears on the left side and a small symbol of a keyboard appears on the left bottom corner of the windows logo. The logon box does not appear its all black. When I press crtrl+alt+delete I can see the cursor blinking, when I type in my username I can see the cusor moving but I can`t see the letters that I am typing. The moment I hit tab so that I can type the password the cusor disappears and I still can`t logon.

Are you able to connect to this servers event logs from another server to see any indicative error logs?

Yeah, I have already done that, there is no entry that gives an information that might help. The olny entries that were there indicated that disk C was full, of which I created more space by deleting temp files and screenshots reports, that that are created by a third part application. These screen shots are suppose to deleted every week or so. They had not been deleted for sometime causing the C drive to fill up and causing the server to freeze. When I manually restarted it thats when the problem I am facing started. This server is also the print server and is one of the ADs. It also runs UNFLOW Cannon`s print management system and has Ranger installed.
Its not being backed up, there are no restore points. It all went wrong just a day after I joined as an admin.

I would first get a backup of the server in its present, albeit damaged, state. No sense losing data.

After that, run CHKDSK C: /V to see if there's any obvious errors on the server's OS drive. If there's other logical drives, run it on those as well. Likely as not, you're going to end up running CHKDSK C: /F/X/V anyway on the server, which will result in downtime.

Aside from the local logon issue, is the server running and able to service clients normally?

Yes the server is running normally and is able to service clients normally, but its getting to a point were i need to logon  to the server and do some changes and I can`t. i would have run check disk but this server is an HP Proliant ML370, I have tried to run CHKDSK but when I pop in the server 2003 cd and run it, after a while it says it can`t see the hard disk, that there is no harddisk in the drive. I have also tried to run CHKDSK from within windows using the UBCD4WIN but it doesn`t do the check disk after rebooting.
I have tried to boot into safe mode on this server but it doesn`t allow you to go into safe mode. I have researched on the internet  as well and no one seems to know how to boot this type of server into safe mode maybe you can help. i have been hitting F8, then tried F6, F10, F11, F12 but known of these keys gets this server into safe mode.

You don't have to boot from CD or anything else to run a CHKDSK. If you're using UBCD (and it sees the drives when booted from it) you can CHKDSK the server drives without a reboot because they're not the host operating system.

The F8 key should be doing it. If it's not getting into safe mode and the server has a USB keyboard it may not be initializing the keyboard in time. If this is the case, see if there's a PS2 keyboard you can borrow for the server to start in safe mode.

Just to confirm, there's no errors in the application or system logs after the drive space issue was cleared up, correct?

I am running CHKDSK from within UBD4WIN as you adviced but its saying I must first dismount the volume, that ALL OPEN HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. How can I mount the volume back? Also if the handles became invalide will the system still work? This volume contains the OS.

Get a backup first, then yes, allow it to dismount the drive. It should automatically re-mount it once CHKDSK is done.

Be aware that he CHKDSK may take several hours depending on any damage and the size of the drive.

I tried using CHKDSK from within UBCD4WIN but it failed saying that the some files are being used by another proccess ...chkdsk will run after a reboot. I had answered yes so as to allow the volume to be dismounted.

I have also tried F8 so that I can get into safe mode but for some reason it doesn`t go into safe mode. I even tried with another ps2 mouse and keyboard but it didn`t work.

This issue has been resolved. Craigmasgrove was right it was the colour registry key that was wrongly configured, all the entries were set to all 0s.
I finally managed to get the server into safe mode by using iLO and imported the colour registry key that I had exported from a similar server. Once that was done, rebooted the server and everything was working as it should.
However something still puzzels me, before the issue was resolved I had tried to do the same using UBCD4WIN but it didn`t work, After importing the registry key using the UBCD I was getting a message that the process has completed successfully but after rebooting the server the problem had not been rectfied. Could it be that the UBCD does not work when resolving this kind of issue or could it be that I was using it wrongly?

robertmashavira:
This issue has been resolved. Craigmasgrove was right it was the colour registry key that was wrongly configured, all the entries were set to all 0s.
I finally managed to get the server into safe mode by using iLO and imported the colour registry key that I had exported from a similar server. Once that was done, rebooted the server and everything was working as it should.
However something still puzzels me, before the issue was resolved I had tried to do the same using UBCD4WIN but it didn`t work, After importing the registry key using the UBCD I was getting a message that the process has completed successfully but after rebooting the server the problem had not been rectfied. Could it be that the UBCD does not work when resolving this kind of issue or could it be that I was using it wrongly?

Oh great.. glad you got it resolved..

had this happen to me about 2 years ago...
RDP users complaining their logins were hung.. well they wernt but rather all the wrong color...
on the server console, had the same issue as you explained.
Hit the reset button (no no!!!) and system booted up the same... wth?
I may have hit reset again and started in safe mode or just clicked thru the login (not seeing username of password) after reading the link to MS doc as I supplied...
I did a regedit and manually changed the numbers to where they shoudl have been (no reg import), restarted and the server was fine... dont ask me how that happened.. still looking..

as for UBCD,...nice tool!
hmmm as for importing registry via that route i dont know.. I know you dont ahve access to all the reg keys that way... like 3 of the 5...
I recommended that tool in case it "was something else" other then the reg color entires...

Glad you got it working.. feels better now doesnt it?!

Tremendous weight off my shoulders, is how I feel. Thanks man.