markthespark Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Has anyone come across this one before: We were carrying out PAT testing for one of our clients. They were asked if the server could be shutdown for testing and they said carry on. We did a normal shutdown on the server (i.e. close programs, click start then shutdown, etc) Following the checks the server would power up but would only bring up a dos page and refuse to go any further. Our clients staff then repeatedly tried switching the power on and off to try and get the thing to run but with no success. The bottom line is that our client is now hitting us with a bill for two days of an PC engineer to "rebuild the system on-site". Are we being made scape-goats for something that wasn't really our fault? We're waiting for the client to send us a copy of their engineers report. I wont hold my breath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djrock Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Hello, What operating system is it running? Maybe something was corrupted before you got there and because you shut the server down and brought it back up the corruption has stopped it booting right. Was there no admin staff or technicians at the clients place for them to shut the server down? djrock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jmancs Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Hi mate, is there any floppy disc in the floppy drive? check the IDE Cables and Check see if the pins are ok in back of the Hard disc, make sure any disc is out of the cd drives or flooy drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lectrician Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Sounds like a fault waiting to happen..... But, as has been said, I would want someone else to shut down the server. No eggs on me then! Had a similar situation on an AS400 server last year - needed to kill a submain during the lunch hour, and the techy said "go ahead - our UPS will last for 45mins". It didn't even last 5 seconds! Server wouldn't restart there either, and when it finally did, the kilostream lines wouldn't sync, and MD was sat watching money pour down the drain with smoke coming from his ears as the telesales phones rang...... I am always glad that wasn't on my shoulders..... Email : martin@askthetrades.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WatchdogSecurity Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Has anyone come across this one before:We were carrying out PAT testing for one of our clients. They were asked if the server could be shutdown for testing and they said carry on. We did a normal shutdown on the server (i.e. close programs, click start then shutdown, etc) Following the checks the server would power up but would only bring up a dos page and refuse to go any further. Our clients staff then repeatedly tried switching the power on and off to try and get the thing to run but with no success. The bottom line is that our client is now hitting us with a bill for two days of an PC engineer to "rebuild the system on-site". Are we being made scape-goats for something that wasn't really our fault? We're waiting for the client to send us a copy of their engineers report. I wont hold my breath. Wont need a day depend on the OS, if at worst MS SBS2003 with 4 cds, it will take a couple of hours to do a repair using the repair method, seems like the os core files are damaged, what was the Server OS.? Watchdog Security (Manchester) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norman Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Lesson to be learnt I think, get the client to do all the shutting down/rebooting. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markthespark Posted March 14, 2006 Author Share Posted March 14, 2006 Apparently the server was quite old and running... wait for it... Windows 95. p.s. client member of staff who authorised the shutdown was there watching. And her colleagues commented that "she's broke the machine again!". I bet they won't admit that to their boss. p.p.s. we've knocked back the invoice, lets see what happens now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WatchdogSecurity Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Apparently the server was quite old and running...wait for it... Windows 95. thatll be why, did it go to a command prompt?, try typing windows or win Win95 is not a Server OS, it will of just hosted files, so no exchange / sql etc, so will take and hour or 2 to recover. Youve done them a favour, maybe now they will take there IT seriously and run a proper server. Watchdog Security (Manchester) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Wont need a day depend on the OS, if at worst MS SBS2003 with 4 cds, it will take a couple of hours to do a repair using the repair method, Depends, if it's a hardware failure then it could take a good day to re-install, patch, re-setup accounts, domains and policies etc... (obviously as this is a Win95 server then this doesn't apply, but it could so this is a general statement that it could take up to a couple of days for a proper server). On my PAT tester (Seaward Europa Plus) it has an 'In-Situ Test' which can be done without powering down appliances, useful for servers. Even though I know what I'm doing with servers I don't power them down as this sort is a fairly common occurence. We've done office moves before and a server that's sat there happily for years and years never being switched off has decided that it will fail once powered down (usually hard drives failing). I even ask customers to power down their own PC's where possible as anything that goes wrong is always going to be your fault whether it is or not. As norm says, lesson learnt there. In this instance I doubt you have anything to worry about it, the "server" is well past it's sell by date and should have been binned years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WatchdogSecurity Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 Depends, if it's a hardware failure then it could take a good day to re-install, patch, re-setup accounts, domains and policies etc... (obviously as this is a Win95 server then this doesn't apply, but it could so this is a general statement that it could take up to a couple of days for a proper server).On my PAT tester (Seaward Europa Plus) it has an 'In-Situ Test' which can be done without powering down appliances, useful for servers. Even though I know what I'm doing with servers I don't power them down as this sort is a fairly common occurence. We've done office moves before and a server that's sat there happily for years and years never being switched off has decided that it will fail once powered down (usually hard drives failing). I even ask customers to power down their own PC's where possible as anything that goes wrong is always going to be your fault whether it is or not. As norm says, lesson learnt there. In this instance I doubt you have anything to worry about it, the "server" is well past it's sell by date and should have been binned years ago. Aye, if its hardware, then its a full restore ( If they have backups) but if its halted on STOP errors or Missing file errors, then a simple repair should do the trick. As its 95, i would just rebuild on a new server with full NTFS permissions and put the win95 disk in and copy over the data. Cant believe there using 95 ad a Server, as you can only have 10 max connections, including DNS lookups (although there are reg patches to increase this) You have learnt the hard way. Do you know what it booted to, an error ? dos prompt. ? Watchdog Security (Manchester) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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