[gogoduty]

Hello All...
I have a brand new machine with Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4 installed with all current SP's and fixes. Works fine... Howeverr, I need to get the OS to recognize all 8GB of RAM. The problem arrises when I add the /PAE switch to the boot.ini and reboot.
About halfway through the "Starting Windows" screen the computer Blue Screens and gives a "Stop: 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" error. The only way "revive" the computer is by using the Recovery Console to replace the original boot.ini file. Then it boots normally again. I have been wrestling with this for quite a while now, and thought that someone might be able to shed some light on this situation. Thank you in advance for your time, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Take care.

-Tim

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Also...

From the Recovery Console, I have tried running the FIXMBR command, but that didn't seem to make any difference...same BSoD.
Also ran CHKDSK /R and that didn't seem to do anything either. Am I missing something here?!?

Thanks.

-Tim

[gogoduty]

Also...

From the Recovery Console, I have tried running the FIXMBR command, but that didn't seem to make any difference...same BSoD.
Also ran CHKDSK /R and that didn't seem to do anything either. Am I missing something here?!?

Thanks.

-Tim

[gerryf]

scsi drive? New drivers?

bios update?

[gogoduty]

2 - 200 GB WD SATA HDD's
HW RAID-1 using Adaptec Embedded SATA RAID Driver (update 4/1/05)

BIOS Updated 3/18/05

Very recent updates...Is there such thing as "too new"??

[gerryf]

given that the physical address extensions are fairly old now, maybe.

is that all you have (only switch?) in boot.ini? Anything that could be conflicting?

[gogoduty]

Sorry to keep adding, but I just remembered this....

The /PAE switch does recognize 7.6GB of RAM when the /PAE is added prior to installing Windows Updates. In that case, the machine would run fine until the post-Windows Update reboot, at which point it would blue screen with an "Unable to Locate DLL" error. Don't know if that helps any, but thought it was worth pointing out. Thanks.

[gogoduty]

Yes, the /PAE switch is the only thing that I added to the boot.ini... I don't think anything else could be conflicting.

[gerryf]

Unable to Locate DLL" error

what dll?

[gogoduty]

WINSRV.DLL could not be found in the specified path Default Load Path.

But when I use the RC to check, I find that it is in the correct path: C:\winnt\system32\winsrv.dll

So, then I tried loading an updated copy of winsrv.dll from a floppy. The result of that was a different BSoD...this time it said STOP: C0000139 "Entry Point Not Found" and made reference to the USER32.DLL

[gerryf]

What makes you think that is an updated copy? Or, perhaps it is, but your user.dll is outdated.

I wonder if an update failed?

The entry point not found means a process was looking for a function in a section of another DLL and it was not there....you have mismatched DLLs.

[gogoduty]

I used the "date" of the DLL file to determine that it was a newer version, which I assume would be an updated version.

I think we are starting to get away from root of the issue, which is that, no matter what something with the /PAE switch is conflicting with the Windows Updates. Everything runs fine until /PAE gets involved... I am starting to think that you may have been right when you said that there might be such a thing as "too new". I have an email into the techsupport at Tyan, so I'll see what they have to say.

Is there an easy way to undue a BIOS update...??? Is a OS reinstall in my near future? The server was shipped with the updated BIOS already installed... How would you go about reverting back to a previous BIOS??

Thanks for your help.

[gerryf]

You can simply flash with an older version...

but, I still do not like the couldn't find entry point. It is not the cause of this issue, but it is an issue that has been added on to the original.

I don't know why this is occuring, but that error is usually a driver error for you ide/scsi/sata driver. The only thing that makes sense is that with the extra headroom, the driver is being loaded too high into memory, and for whatever reason, that causes it to not access the drive properly,

so, I would be looking at earlier versions of the SATA driver...

[gogoduty]

Ahhh, now you've sparked my interest again. It's funny you mentioned that about looking into an earlier SATA driver b/c I had an issue with the manufacturers original "Adaptec Embedded SATA HostRAID Driver" floppy that came with the Motherboard.
The issue was that the Win2000 install couldn't find any HD's when using the original floppy. I found that, because the MB BIOS had been updated the original SATA HostRAID disk was no longer compatible. So I had to download the updated "Adaptec Em.. SATA HostRAID Driver" onto a seperate floppy to get the Win2000 install to recognize Hard Drives. Therefore, if we think the issue is with the SATA driver, then I would need to go back to a previous version of the MB BIOS to ensure compatiblity.

Just another note. We have two of these identical servers, and we have Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition on the other, and haven't had any issues with it or the /PAE switch. And I would just put Win2003 Server on this one as well, but the software that is going on this box is not supported for Windows 2003 Server. Quite a predicament, right?

Is the "Adaptec Embedded SATA HostRAID Driver" the same as the SATA driver that you mentioned??? I probably should have started with this question.

[gerryf]

I suspect so...

What motherboard? did it come with a cd with drivers?

[gogoduty]

The Motherboard is a TYAN - Tiger i7320 (S5350) ... and Yes, it did come with a CD of drivers.