Replacing MOBO in NT Server 4

[Melmac]

Okay, had a MOBO crash. (Wonderful, right?) The bad part is that it is not my network, it is my wife's employer's. He asked me to repair his server and get it back up and running. It was a dual P133 with 32MB of RAM. I upgraded to a dual PIII MOBO with PIII 600's and 256MB RAM. (Little bit better?). Is there a way to get this this back up and running without starting from scratch? I really don't want to have to wipe it out. I have heard of deleting the enum key, will this work? Any help would be appreciated.

------------------
Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

[3fingersalute]

Hmmmmm....I replaced the Mboard in our NT Server here a couple of months ago, and I just did a re-install of NT4 along with SP6...worked fine.

I did the re-install on the initial boot-up with the new board.

------------------
24 hours in a day ... 24 beers in a case ... coincidence?¿?

[This message has been edited by 3fingersalute (edited March 01, 2001).]

[Melmac]

These crazies have no BDC though. If I reinstall NT, it will be a new domain. Then I will have to go around and remove then re-add all of the workstations to the domain. If you try to boot it with the new mobo, the HAL will pull the brakes. I think there is a way to redetect the hardware.

------------------
Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

[bdunn]

Do you have the set of 3 floppies that come with NT if so boot from them. You can start the install process and it should find the already installed operating system and give you several options including repair the current install. Chose to repair and it should work.

If you dont have the floppies they can be made from the CD but I cant remember the command line parameter. I'm sure someone else here would know.

[Melmac]

I thought that would work too, it was the first thing I tried. No luck though, still having fits with the Hardware Abstraction Layer.

------------------
Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

[cyberhh]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by bdunn:
Do you have the set of 3 floppies that come with NT if so boot from them. You can start the install process and it should find the already installed operating system and give you several options including repair the current install. Chose to repair and it should work.

If you dont have the floppies they can be made from the CD but I cant remember the command line parameter. I'm sure someone else here would know. </font>

I have donw that several times and had no problems - is all the hardware fully tested and known to be good (ie. Have you installed a clean NT on an empty HDD since you started?)

------------------
Death is lighter than a feather - duty heavier than a mountian.

[Melmac]

What I had originally done upon receiving the server was simply relocate the drives and scsi controller to an existing setup. (After removing the drives it had of course). I thought this would be a temp. fix. But the HAL kept giving me errors. I will try it again with the new hardware I just bought.

------------------
Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

[Mr_Miner]

This may be more trouble than it's worth, but if nothing else works, one night use an older box to setup a BDC, promte it, take down the old server, etc...

Like I said, if nothing else works.


------------------

Chris Roberts, MCSE, MCP+I
Montgomery, AL

[Melmac]

Thanks to everyone for their responses and suggestions. I have spent more time looking for a shortcut than it will take to just rebuild the domain. Going to give the repair one more shot, then just suck it up if need be. I guess sometimes the shortest road is the long one.....thanks again.

------------------
Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.