Issue with my W2k3 server after SP1 installation

SBC said:

Laurent -
We have a Groove Space that's examining W2K3 Server (w/SP1) and GVO installation. I'll send you an invitation to the space.

SBC

# April 4, 2005 3:14 PM

Laurent Kempé said:

Thanks, I run Groove then :)

# April 4, 2005 3:15 PM

Paul Wilson said:

Dell has some servers with driver incompatibilities -- at least that's the story my admin tells me when he had to rebuild two machines this weekend after installing SP1. :(

# April 4, 2005 4:37 PM

EROL said:

courage

# April 5, 2005 3:51 AM

I had the same issue. It had to do with the BlackIce firewall I installed on it. Even though the Windows 2003 SP1 firewall was not started, BlackIce (or SP1) made sure I'd never see a login screen. In Safe mode I disabled BlackIce. No more issues after that and I quickly removed BlackIce (since it's not supported for Win2003 anyway).

# April 5, 2005 8:36 AM

Laurent Kempé said:

Paul: Thanks dor the hint. I guess I can change my mother board then :(

Sander: Thanks, but I can't even boot in safe mode

# April 6, 2005 12:42 AM

G Robertson said:

I had a similar problem with an IBM X365 that hung on reboot at this point. It turned out to be a compatibility problem with Hyper-Threading and 2003 SP1. I disabled Hyper-threading in the BIOS and the server booted OK.

# April 7, 2005 9:58 AM

Laurent Kempé said:

G Robertson: Thanks for the feedback. I don't have hyper threading, my server is an "old" machine with athlon xp 1800. But I am currently investigating the ACPI, I disabled the service at startup, and in the bios, but it is even worth... :-( HELP

# April 7, 2005 10:07 AM

sg said:

Similar problem .. Intel serverboard - dynamic boot drives are trashed and hangs at alpitabl.dat

# April 7, 2005 1:25 PM

Peter Tosh said:

I have several IBM x365's. I was able to fix one by installing the new version 1.12 firmware upgrade. The other keeps rebooting after it hangs on acpitabl.dat. This sux!

# April 7, 2005 3:44 PM

Jian said:

Same problem, took Emulex HBA out and was able to boot into windows. uninstalling sp-1 now.

# April 8, 2005 12:54 PM

Jian said:

uninstalled sp1 and updated the emulex driver, reinstalled sp1. working fine now.

# April 8, 2005 1:42 PM

Peter said:

What version is your updated Emulex driver??

# April 8, 2005 2:55 PM

TrackBack said:

# April 9, 2005 2:24 AM

Colin Willies said:

I too have this problem with an old Compaq test machine. I get a Ox000007E blue screen, and when attempting a safe mode boot the last command to run is the attempt to parse acpitabl.dat. The BIOS does not provide for changing ACPI settings but it works fine on 2K3 RTM - only when upgrading to SP1 does the problem arrise. Any suggestions welcome.

Sincerely

Colin (cwillies@free.fr)

# April 9, 2005 9:34 AM

Jian said:

Emulex Storport Miniport Driver 5.1.3.9 11/30/2004

# April 11, 2005 9:49 AM

Jim McNulty said:

One of my W2k3 servers (enterprise edition) hangs on the acpitabl.dat file and will not start after installing SP1. Two other W2k3 servers are not experiencing the issue.

# April 12, 2005 8:33 AM

Thiago said:

I have the same problem with an IBM x365. I update the firmware version after I've installed SP1. Reinstalling the SP1 would resove it
Thanks

# April 15, 2005 4:35 PM

Colin Willies said:

I have found a workaround - when the machine crashes (typically at first reboot following SP1 installation) find a way to access the filesystem (I used a BartPE liveboot CD but you would use a MandrakeMove or a maintenance OS if you have one on hand) and rename update.sys (in %windir%\system32\drivers). The system will now boot. You can it seems replace this file with the RTM version if you like. The issue seems to be the same as that described for Win XP at http://cquirke.mvps.org/sp2intel.htm. Hope this is of help.

# April 16, 2005 6:43 AM

Colin Willies said:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885626 describes the same issue on XP

# April 16, 2005 7:22 AM

GM Upchurch said:

G. Robertson: Thanks for the info. We upgraded 5 x365's and they all had the same problem. Turning off Hyperthreading did the trick.

# April 17, 2005 7:31 AM

SirTech said:

I've the same problem, but i identify that when i start the sistem with the instalation cd's there's no problem to start the system, but when i start whithout the cd the system doesn't start ... now i'm working on solve this problem

# April 17, 2005 1:32 PM

Renato Weber said:

Many thanks for the hints. I had the same problem on IBM 365 servers... I disabled the hyperthreading now.

# April 18, 2005 11:00 AM

George said:

I think my problem is with emulex!
Jian says took emulex HBA out... but how??

# April 18, 2005 2:03 PM

Chris Smith said:

Turning off the HyperThreading did the trick on my x365's. IBM released a ServeRAID FW and Bios update that did not work.

# April 19, 2005 12:25 PM

Jian said:

open your CPU box and physically remove HBA card. I know that it's pain.

# April 22, 2005 8:45 AM

Matthew Hudnall said:

I had the same issue on my MSI K7D Master-L (MS-6501) mortherboard. I had rebooted since SP1 without issues until today when it started to hang. I also experienced the problem of safe mode hanging at acpitabl.dat. I had the most recent bios update, so that couldn’t help me. I tried disabling ACPI, but that threw my server into a continuous reboot cycle (because the OS was installed with ACPI enabled and expected it to be there).

What worked for me was to change my ACPI settings from “S1 POS” to “S1 & S3”. I did not experiment further to see if just “S3” would have worked since I chose not to break what was working. I did boot the first time into safe mode just to be safe (which the OS did pause for a couple of seconds on loading acpitabl.dat, but it did not hang there for long). This may not work for everyone, but it seems to have worked for me.

# April 24, 2005 11:37 AM

Mark Mays said:

We have Dell 1750s with Hyperthreading and Emulex HBAs. Disabling Hyperthreading did NOT help, but popping out the HBA did. Once that was out we could uninstall SP1 and then we were back in business.

# April 25, 2005 5:57 PM

Tonny said:

After installing the SP1 for windows 2003 OS I get the error below, have any idea what I need to get the firewall started...

Windows Firewall can not run because another program or service os running that might use the network address translation component (Ipnat.sys)

# April 27, 2005 1:40 AM

Davidi said:

The problem is the "updated" update.sys file.
Use the Recovery Console to copy RTM file from Win2k3 CD to c:\windows\system\drivers and c:\windows\system\dllcache and boot again your server.

# May 1, 2005 7:56 PM

Tom said:

You guys saved my life!! Got rid of the stupid HBA and my dc boots again ... if any of you live near Brisbane Australia, I owe you multiple beers :-D

# August 30, 2006 5:00 AM

Paul said:

I get the blue screen with the following message. xxx stop: 0x000007E (0xcooooo5, 0xF5F21BB6, 0xF898965c, 0xF898935c I did not start getting this problem until I started using D-link wireless internet connection. Not very good with the computers, perhaps someone can be of some assistance. Thank you.

# October 13, 2006 6:52 PM

AKM said:

My external USB CD-ROM was the problem!!!!

I disconnected it and Windows booted successfully.:)

# December 6, 2006 6:22 AM

Auki said:

Brilliant - thanks all - deleting the update.sys file and replacing with the RTM version worked magic !

All systems back online :)

# December 8, 2006 9:14 PM

KP said:

hello- i cannot find the update.sys file on the windows server 2003 cd, how do i replace the file?

thanks

# January 9, 2007 2:37 PM

silvertip said:

After installing Crystal Reports Server 11, my 2K3 would freeze at the splash screen, or at the acpitabl.dat file when trying in safe mode. The server is a Dell PE-1850. I tried a few things like updating the BIOS and 2K3 repair, but in the end, I let it sit on the spalsh screen for 20-30 minutes and it worked itself out!

# February 2, 2007 7:18 PM

Win2003 Server fails when loading acpitabl.dat - Error said:

PingBack from http://www.errorforum.com/microsoft-windows-2003-error/13889-win2003-server-fails-when-loading-acpitabl-dat.html#post17265

# March 15, 2007 5:44 AM

Troy Baylia said:

I have had this problem twice after installing some microsoft updates. I tried many of the suggestion methods the first time but nothing worked. I ended up rebuilding the server and restoring the AD.

The second time it happened I did a bit more research and troubleshooting. I ended up finding a solution that worked for me.

Boot from the Win2k3 CD and chose to enter repair mode.

Type in the password for your installation of Windows XP, and press Enter.

When you see the C:\Windows Prompt, type this command:

DIR $*

This lists all the folder starting with the letter $. All the $NtUninstall.... folders are now displayed. $NtUninstall folders are nothing but the Hotfix backup folders, which contains the original version of the system files, before the hotfix was installed.

Note down the Hotfix numbers matching the date you installed the problematic Hotfix(es). Spot the Hotfix that you want to remove, and change to that directory by typing this:

CHDIR $NtUninstallKBnnnnnn$\spuninst

Example:

CHDIR $NtUninstallKB873333$\spuninst

Once you're in that folder, you'll need to execute the spuninst.txt which contains DOS commands, similar to a .BAT file. The command instructions in this spuninst.txt file will actually copy the original system files to their respective folders. To run the spuninst.txt file, type this:

BATCH spuninst.txt

The hotfix will be uninstalled. Restart, and see if the problem is resolved. If Windows loads normally, open Add/Remove Programs and completely uninstall that particular hotfix. This ensures that the additional files, Add/Remove entries and other registry keys added by the Hotfix are removed completely.

Introduction

This article explains you how to uninstall a Microsoft hotfix installed using Windows Update site or through Automatic Updates. This procedure is useful in scenarios where installation of a recent update prevents you from loading Windows XP in any startup modes (including Safe Mode Command Prompt, Safe Mode etc).

When you install a hotfix, it automatically creates a hotfix uninstallation folder in your Windows directory. The hotfix backup folder usually has the following naming convention:

$NtUninstallKBnnnnnn$ - Where the nnnnnn refers to the update / Knowledgebase article ID. You can gather more information on that update by visiting this page: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=nnnnnn

Replace nnnnnn with the actual numbers. For example: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=873333

Uninstalling a hotfix using Recovery Console

Boot into the Windows XP Recovery Console using the Windows XP CD-ROM or using the startup option (if available). See article How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP for more information.

Type in the password for your installation of Windows XP, and press Enter.

When you see the C:\Windows Prompt, type this command:

DIR $*

This lists all the folder starting with the letter $. All the $NtUninstall.... folders are now displayed. $NtUninstall folders are nothing but the Hotfix backup folders, which contains the original version of the system files, before the hotfix was installed.

Note down the Hotfix numbers matching the date you installed the problematic Hotfix(es). Spot the Hotfix that you want to remove, and change to that directory by typing this:

CHDIR $NtUninstallKBnnnnnn$\spuninst

Example:

CHDIR $NtUninstallKB873333$\spuninst

Once you're in that folder, you'll need to execute the spuninst.txt which contains DOS commands, similar to a .BAT file. The command instructions in this spuninst.txt file will actually copy the original system files to their respective folders. To run the spuninst.txt file, type this:

BATCH spuninst.txt

The hotfix will be uninstalled. Restart, and see if the problem is resolved. If Windows loads normally, open Add/Remove Programs and completely uninstall that particular hotfix. This ensures that the additional files, Add/Remove entries and other registry keys added by the Hotfix are removed completely.

If Windows does not load, load Recovery Console again and then follow the above procedure to remove the additional Hotfixes one at a time, to isolate the problem. If you install multiple Hotfixes in a single session, it's difficult to point out which of the installed Hotfixes is preventing Windows XP from loading. Hence you need to troubleshoot it on a trial and error basis, using Recovery Console.

Thanks to this link that showed me how to uninstall hotfixes. http://windowsxp.mvps.org/spuninst.htm

The hotfix that actually broke my installation was KB931784

# April 12, 2007 6:51 AM

radyo said:

After installing Crystal Reports Server 11, my 2K3 would freeze at the splash screen, or at the acpitabl.dat file when trying in safe mode. The server is a Dell PE-1850. I tried a few things like updating the BIOS and 2K3 repair, but in the end, I let it sit on the spalsh screen for 20-30 minutes and it worked itself out!

# May 15, 2007 2:22 PM

Brian said:

I took G Robertson's advice (see above) for this and it worked. My x365 had HT enabled. Disabled HT and it then booted up fine.

# May 18, 2007 4:13 PM

Bill said:

I can not believe that they release this service pack with the alpitabl.dat issue. It was very irresponsible. Thank you guys for finding a way to fix someone else's f*ck up.

# June 22, 2007 10:18 PM

Anastasios said:

I have a dell poweredge 2500. No server cd, running server 2k3. It just keeps restarting even in safe mode! What do I do?!

# September 4, 2007 1:31 PM

grant e. said:

After installing win2k3 sp2 on win2k3 server which had no prior sp1, update to dot.net3 hung and I had to power down/restart server. In normal boot, it hangs at spash screen; in safe mode, it hangs at acpitabl.dat. What can I do to fix without having to rebuild the server?

We are running win2k3 on a HP Proliant ML150 G2 with win2k3 mirrored 80G SATA drives.

# September 15, 2007 8:03 PM

Pascal said:

I disabled HT in the BIOS and this allowed us to boot to Safe Mode as well.

# December 2, 2007 7:52 PM

TheySaySo said:

nothing is working.. bios is updated... cant disable hyperthreading.. trying update.sys with no avail.. i hate MS but they got me on lock

# February 1, 2008 1:57 AM

video klipleri said:

nothing is working.. bios is updated... cant disable hyperthreading.. trying update.sys with no avail.. i hate MS but they got me on lock

# April 5, 2008 9:28 PM

BD said:

In our case it was a SAN/Fiber-attached tape library issue. We noticed that the server would loop at the Windows splash screen or hang on acpitabl.dat in safe mode boot. When we disconnected the fiber from the server's HBA's, it would boot up normally. We powered the library down, reconnected the fiber to the HBA's and the server was able to boot up properly. We hypothesize the library was in some funky state and Windows OS was hanging on the bootup portion where it would try to connect to the library's tape drives (which it was zoned in for via fiber).

# June 22, 2008 2:42 PM

rasheinho said:

Hi

can you please guide we any url to get documentation related to win2k3 server installation procedure for DELL...PE1955 or blade servers

# June 24, 2008 1:34 AM

John K. Rutterford said:

We resolved this issue on a clients server by rebuilding the boot.ini file. It appears that "someone" had been adding and removing switches.

1) From the recovery console type bootcfg /rebuild

2) Type in Y

3) Type in a load identifier eg Windows 2003

4) Leave the next line blank, you can add other options later

now EXIT and reboot the server. Fingers crossed this will get you back to the desktop. Now you can delete your boot profile you created above and correct the default one.

Resource information: support.microsoft.com/.../291980

# November 4, 2008 3:58 PM

Henry Hahn said:

Hi Grant E.

Found your report on your fix and I had the same problem which kept me busy and scratching my but for about 7 hours. Disconnected the tape library and Voila.

Thanks very much.

# January 16, 2009 8:39 AM

Kent Nielsen said:

Thanks so much.

have just recovered a windows2003 domain controller using BATCH spuninst.txt and it worked perfectly.

The server is back.... thanks again

Kent

# June 16, 2009 6:56 AM

Nigel said:

Unplugged an eSATA drive and then it just continued to boot.

# July 3, 2009 7:14 AM

Laurent Kempé

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