Failed Service Preventing Login

G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.setup (More info?)

Hi All

WinNT4 SP6.
On boot up this morning, one of my NT clients is refusing to progress beyond
the CTRL-ALT-DEL logon screen.
An error message appears as follows:

Service Control Mananger
At least one service or driver failed during start up. Use event viewer to
examine event logs for details.

At this point the machine is frozen and does not respond to keyboard or
mouse.
The same occurs when booting in VGA mode.

Any ideas as to where I can go from here?

TIA

Phil
 

Calvin

Distinguished
Apr 7, 2004
372
0
18,780
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.setup (More info?)

Hi,

This question is constantly asked - the frequency of people encountering this
particular problem has skyrocketed in the last year or so because of the all the
Virus/Worm scares and everyone finally deciding to do something about plugging
the multitude of security holes left in Microsoft OSes (NT 4.0 included)

To answer - by any chance did you have a copy of Microsoft Intellimouse prior to
V3.2 installed on the machine ? There is known issue of the 'POST SP6a Security
Rollup (SRP) Q299444' breaking the mouse and keyboard when it is installed under
these conditions.

Have a look at Microsoft Knowledgebase Article 305462 - Mouse and Keyboard Stop
Working After You Install the Windows NT 4.0 Security Rollup Package, I think it
will address your particular situation. They offer several possible fixes for
the problem, depending on what type of file system your boot partition is. (ie:
the one that has the /WINNT folder on it)

I managed to cure my particular problem by remote logging in over our LAN and
manually replacing the effected files - fortunately they weren't in use because
they had failed to start. Once I got a working keyboard and mouse again I
properly removed Intellimouse V2.0 using Add/Remove programmes and replaced it
with a later version (V3.2 or later is ok)

Hope this info helps,

Calvin.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.setup (More info?)

Calvin

Many many many thanks - normal service has been resumed.

I got as far as attempting to repair NT, but for some reason the repair
process didn't detect the IDE drive. I know it's a totally different issue,
but do you have any ideas why?

Fortunately the machine is configured with DOS boot option, so renaming
mouse files etc could be done without needing a parallel NT install!

Thanks again

Phil
 

Calvin

Distinguished
Apr 7, 2004
372
0
18,780
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.setup (More info?)

Hi Phil,

Glad it worked for you. Also very lucky your repair process failed, that most
likely would have broken your installation irrepairably. I've lost count of the
number of people who have encountered your problem, tried a 'Repair' and have
wound up having to reload the OS from scratch :-(

The lesson to be learned here is: on NT4.0, due to major changes in system files
(particularly things like the SAM hive of the registry) brought about by
successive Service Packs and Hotfixes/Rollups, a 'Repair' should only be
attempted as a 'last ditch' attempt to save a system. It is in most cases far
likely to cause 100 times more trouble than it will fix.

Calvin.