Restoring the system hive
If a server fails on boot because of system hive problems, you can take various approaches to remedy the situation and get your server running again. These involve the Emergency Repair Disk, the Windows 2000 Recovery Console, and the Emergency Repair Process. The Emergency Repair Disk
Repairing the system hive so that the computer will boot to a usable state is a relatively simple matter, but how much work you'll have to do once you're up and running depends on having a recent copy of the registry. That's why the ERD process is so important. If you have an ERD, you have a recent copy of the system hive, and you need to do just a few things to restore the hive. If you don't have an ERD, you'll have some more work to do to get your server back in shape. Of course, to use an ERD, you need to have made one in the first place. Many administrators put off this task because server configurations can and do change. However, if you haven't made an ERD yet, you should make one at the earliest possible opportunity-such as right after you finish reading this article. The ERD is not a boot diskette, but is used in conjunction with the Windows 2000 Recovery Console. You can make an ERD with the Windows 2000 Backup program. To start the process, click Start | Run. When the Run dialog box opens, type ntbackup and click OK. After the Backup program starts, click the Emergency Repair Disk button and follow the prompts. When you see the Emergency Repair Diskette screen, select the Also Backup The Registry check box. The ERD writes files to a floppy, and creates a folder called Regback on your server's hard drive in the %systemroot%\repair\regback folder. This folder contains the most recent version of files copied to the ERD, including the latest version of the system hive file. You should create a new ERD every time you apply a service pack update to the system or a driver. This ensures that the ERD has a fresh copy of the system hive. The Windows 2000 Recovery Console
The Recovery Console is a tool for advanced administrative tasks. You can run it from the Windows 2000 CD at boot or install it onto a server. If you haven't previously installed the Recovery Console on your server, I highly recommend that you do so. To install the Recovery Console, insert the Windows 2000 CD into the CD-ROM drive. Open a command prompt and type drive:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons, where drive is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive. Click Yes to start the installation procedure. Then, restart the server. The next time you boot the server, the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console will appear as a choice on the server's boot menu. If you want to start the repair process, select this choice; otherwise, let the server boot as normal. To run the Recovery Console from the Windows 2000 CD at boot time, first make sure that your server's BIOS is set to boot from the CD-ROM drive. Once you get to the text-mode portion of Setup, you're prompted to install Windows 2000 or press R to repair an existing installation. Naturally, you'll press R, because you don't want to completely reinstall Windows 2000. The next screen asks you to choose between using the Recovery Console and the Emergency Repair Process. The Recovery Console presents you with a command line starting in the %systemroot% directory. As we'll see, you can repair your server this way by renaming files. The Emergency Repair Process
By contrast, the Emergency Repair Process presents two options to fix your system: Manual Repair and Fast Repair. Manual Repair inspects the Windows 2000 startup environment, verifies Windows 2000 system files, and inspects the boot sector. It doesn't check the registry files. Choose the Fast Repair option and, assuming that %systemroot%\repair is accessible, the registry files will be checked. If you can't start your server because of a problem with the system hive, you'll likely see a message such as Error Message: Windows Could Not Start Because The Following File Is Missing Or Corrupt: \Winnt\System32\Config\System.ced. You'll also see this error message if you've installed a Promise ATA66 IDE PCI controller card. If you have, remove it and try again.