Pre-disaster Tips Backup. There are backup programs that provide boot diskettes so you can boot and restore your entire backup tape, like BEI's UltraBac 5.0 (about $150, and has disk defrag after backup). This site also has a whitepaper on Disaster Recovery, highlighting the image backup technique (feature of UltraBac). You can download a copy of UltraBac from this site. NovaStor's NovaBACKUP 6.0 also has boot disk restore ability (although not the defrag abilities), for about $50 [online]. For $20 more, you can get NovaWORKS Security Suite, which includes the backup, anti-virus, and encryption. You can download a demo of NovaBACKUP from this site. The one I use, Seagate Backup Exec 2.0 (about $150; or $99 comp. upgrade), does not provide a boot disk. Make at least one copy of your NT Setup diskettes (using either diskcopy, or winnt /ox from the NT CDROM \i386 directory). If you have applied SP3 or SP4, you'll need to copy setupdd.sys from the service pack files to the NT Setup Disk 2 If you have the SP CD, the file is in the \i386 directory. SP4 only: setupdd.sys is not included in the small download: it is included in the 76MB download only, and on the CD! Whenever you change the Registry, run rdisk /s from the command line, then update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) by running rdisk.exe (in the System32 directory). RDISK with the /s switch backs up the entire Registry, including the DEFAULT, SAM and SECURITY files. Run CHKDSK regularly with the /f and /r switches. Potential Problems hardware (especially after a new installation) bad configuration (especially after new software including Service Packs) data corruption (actually a known NT 4 problem in some cases, and addressed in a Service Pack), and lost boot (or partition) sector How can it happen? Physically, your hardware (HDD) could have problems (bad sectors). In the case of bad sectors, NTFS won't write data to a bad sector, but it can't read data from a bad sector, either, so although NTFS provides a modicum of protection from hard disk problems, it's certainly not foolproof -- and hard disks do "go bad". You might not know it until you try to reboot, unless you perform CHKSDKs often. In the case of new hardware, it's very easy to dislodge a cable while trying to jam in a new peripheral card. Also, the driver(s) for the new hardware might not be configured properly, or might be buggy. Steps to get in to NT if you can't boot up Run NT Setup from the NT Setup diskettes, and try a repair. You can choose from among the following options: Inspect Registry files Inspect Startup environment Verify Windows NT system files Inspect boot sector If there are problems with any of the above, you'll need your ERD on hand to replace files, and maybe your Windows NT CD. If the program reports that you have a corrupt boot sector, you'll need to either repair the boot sector manually or format/reinstall NT. If all of the above checked out okay, or you repaired everything but you're still not getting into NT, then it's time to install a minimal NT to a new directory. Note: this is not about formatting and re-designing things right now... even if you've been wanting to do that -- you should try to leave as much of the current installation in place as possible so you can determine the problem and recover as much data as possible. From this juncture, you should be able to boot into the new NT, and thus discover/repair the problem. If nothing else, you can backup everything that's left before you format. You're Finally In... The reasons for not being able to boot are numerous, but checking for a virus is probably the first thing you should do now (unless you're certain it was a bad driver or configuration that caused the problem). Running CHKDSK /f /r should clear up any disk-based problems for the old NT installation. If there were errors found, you'd need to copy back the files that were corrupt before you could boot back into the "old" install. If everything seems fine, then you should definitely backup to tape now (before you try to reboot again). And if you reboot, and all is well, you may want to get rid of the "new" NT install (likewise, you may want to keep it for such another case). To remove a second installation of NT, just delete the "new" directory, and edit your boot.ini file to remove that entry. Repairing a Corrupt Boot Sector You have to be using NTFS, which stores a backup of your Master Boot Record on another part of your HDD, and you'll need to have the ability to boot Then you'll need a disk editor (like Disk Probe, which comes with the NT Resource Kit. If you're still interested in this option, see the MS Knowledge Base article Recovering NTFS Boot Sector on Windows NT 4.0 Partitions. More! There is a program you can buy, called NT Recover, which allows you to access a dead NT machine via another NT machine connected via serial cable. It allows you to access and replace problem files on the first NT machine. For further information, see the Windows NT Magazine article Troubleshooting NT Boot Failures, and it's second part, More on Troubleshooting NT Boot Failures.

What you need to have on hand: your NT Setup disks which will serve to run NT's Repair utility from Setup your latest ERD any OEM drivers not included on the NT 4 CD Service Packs at least backed up on tape so you can apply them after a reinstall Book about NT Recovery: Windows NT Backup and Recovery