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Thread: Server 2003 fails to boot, "load needed DLLs"

  1. #1
    Oranuf Guest

    Server 2003 fails to boot, "load needed DLLs"

    System worked great for over 4 months. Rebooted a Windows 2003 Server
    instance inside XenExpress today, and instead of booting up as it should,
    all we get is the following error:

    "Windows could not start because of an error in the software. Please report
    this problem as : load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support
    person to report this problem."

    Two other test instances in the VM also booted up with this error. That's
    three instances that are hosed.

    The OS has all the latest service packs and patches that I know of (SP2 plus
    all subsequent hotfixes/etc.), and had been rebooted since those updates
    without issue.

    Have tried all MS articles related to hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe, using SP2
    versions of those files and the correct type of those files extracted, per
    \windows\repair\setup.log. Still no joy.

    Here's the info from setup.log on the actual VM I'm trying to fix:

    \WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll = "halaacpi.dll", "20143"
    \WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe = "ntoskrnl.exe", "227422"

    So I went and found the correct files to be expanded from Service Pack 2,
    stuck them on a CD and copied them to the dead system's system32 directory.
    No luck.

    Versions of the original files and the ones I expanded from Service Pack 2:

    ORIGINAL hal.dll -- 118272 bytes, 2/17/2007 3:08am
    EXPANDED hal.dll - 118272 bytes, 2/16/2007 10:48pm

    ORIGINAL ntoskrnl.exe -- 2430464 bytes, 3/5/2007 9:04am
    EXPANDED ntoskrnl.exe -- 2430464 bytes, 2/16/2007 11:29pm

    SO -- after expanding, the files appear to be exactly the same EXCEPT that
    the file dates and times... and the system still will not boot using the
    expanded files.

    Did a boot in safe mode, and it appears to go past hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe,
    the last line says "kdcom.dll" and then I get the error message "load needed
    DLLs for kernel."

    Hardware checks out -- Dell 1950, XenExpress 4.1, dual 750GB RAID1 SATA
    drives, according to the RAID software drives are working fine. Standard
    stuff, really.

    Are there other core files needed for startup that could be broken, that I
    could try to compare and recover? If this happens to servers that we've set
    up for other clients, I'm complete toast -- it'll be hours of downtime while
    I completely rebuild them and then restore from backup, and I'll be insane.
    I don't dare reboot them out of fear they won't come back up. Is there any
    way to check and see if they too are destined for failure?

    Should I try combinations of the two different hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe
    files or will that be a waste of time considering they are the same size?

    Tremendous help will be appreciated... really in a bind here.

    Thanks!

    O




  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    4,221

    Re: Server 2003 fails to boot, "load needed DLLs"

    Try to start your computer by using the last known good configuration. Restart your computer and then press F8 continuously after the BIOS screen. You will get a list of options in which you need to select the last known good configuration and then press Enter. After that try to recover from the problems like a newly added driver which might be incorrect for your hardware.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Posts
    1,179

    Re: Server 2003 fails to boot, "load needed DLLs"

    You can also try to boot your computer in clean environment. To do the same click on Start and then click Run and then type msconfig in the same box and click ok. After that click the General tab and then click Diagnostic Startup and load basic devices and services only and then click ok. After that click Restart and when Windows will start then see if the problem is still happening or its over.

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