Can't boot my domain conroller: NTDetect Failed Please Help!!!!!

Try powering down and backup doing  a hard reboot. What OS are you running?

I'm running Windows 2000.

I rebooted several dozen times.  I'm trying to use the installation CD to help get things going.

I just noticed that ntdetect.com was missing from the root directory, so I copied it from the CD.  Now I get the following error messege:

Starting Windows.....
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Windows 2000 could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as :
load needed DLLs for the kernel.
Please contact your support person to report this problem.


Any suggestions?

Windows 2000
To resolve this issue in Windows 2000:
Start the computer from the Windows 2000 CD-ROM.
At the "Welcome to Setup" menu select R for repair.
Select Manual Repair.
Select only Startup Environment from the repair options.
When prompted, insert the Emergency Repair Disk (ERD). If you do not have an ERD you can proceed without one.
When the repair process is completed, remove the ERD from the floppy disk drive, and then press ENTER to restart the computer.


KB 242112

ah no ERD sorry

Or just use ntbackup and point it to a network share...   at least that would be something..  and believe me, you are not the only one that neglects backups..  see it every day..  

I agree, a repair install looks like the only option here...  sadly...

One more thing..  I wonder if your hard drive is going south on you..??   Before you go to the trouble of repairing the OS, you might want to run some disk diagnostics on your hard drives..  at least your system partition drive...  You can dnload these diags from the manufacturer, or I can provide you a list of all of them...  but as these experts know, it will fill up this page..  :)

Also, try booting to the Recovery Console and running the chkdsk -r command..  runs a check on the file system of the hard drive..

FE

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/Q242/1/12.ASP&NoWebContent=1

My luck continues...

I follow the steps as outlined in the article above for
1) Insert the Windows 2000 Setup CD into the CD-ROM drive, start the computer, and then press a key to start from the CD-ROM.
2) On the Windows 2000 Setup screen, press ENTER to run the To set up Windows 2000 now, press Enter command.
3) Click Accept to accept the License Agreement.
4) Setup should now detect your installation. NOTE: If the Setup program does not detect a previous installation but just continues to the partitioning screen, there is a problem. An in-place upgrade may not be possible.

Sure enough, the Setup proram does not detect the previous installation, but just continues on to the partioning screen.

Can I somehow perform the install anyway to the directory c:\winnt2 and then point back to the original installation of c:\winnt ?  (Pardon me if this sounds extremely stupid...)

Any other ideas? or am I in big trouble...

Never stupid, but I would definitely ck those drives before continuing on...   You could be at this for the rest of the year if the drives are bad...  

I think that the drive might need to be replaced.  I was hoping that I could get the system back up and running and then use ghost to make an image that I could restore on to the new drive.  (BTW, I did run chkdsk and it seemed to fix a few errors and finish normally.


If I did perform the re-install, I would want to "point back" to the original directory.  Can I do this?

This is the tough part..  I have never done a Directory Restore without a backup of the System State..   You would normally use Directory Services Restore mode from the Advanced Startup menu, but since you don't have a backup, I really am at a loss here..  I have a feeling that you will have to rebuild the AD database from scratch, but perhaps another expert may have a workaround.. if so, I would love to hear it..

FE

I guess it is a matter of what he needs to save is it data or the AD Structure? If it is the data you could try slaving the hardrive off a second computer so you can copy things. If it is the AD database I know of no way.

It looks like you can now access the hard drive with the re-install..  correct..??  If so, the data is still there, but rebuilding the AD will be the issue...  

The drive boots fine now, but my registry is gone (all of the installed programs, AD, DNS...)

All of the software is still on the drive, but the install just created a secont System Root directory (C:\WINNT2).

I think that it's a lost cause...  I purchased a new hard drive, so I'm going to do a complete re-install of everything..  But I'd still like to know if there is a solution.  Might come in handy someday (although I'll be backing up my machine from now on .... ;)

This question needs to be closed out, unless you have a reason to leave it open.  If you would, please accept one of the experts comments, or split the points if more than one expert helped you.  If you do not know how to do this, please go here for help:

How do I close a question?
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Community_Support/help.jsp#hi9

Closing Questions
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Community_Support/help.jsp#hs5

Thanks,

FE

No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned.

I will leave the following recommendation for this question in the Cleanup topic area:
    Split: PeteLong {http:#10778422}; Fatal_Exception {http:#10784330}

Any objections should be posted here in the next 4 days. After that time, the question will be closed.

jdeclue
EE Cleanup Volunteer

Thanks C101