A Simple Solution for a Server Shutdown
by Mark Bale
Having recently installed Microsoft Small Business Server 4.5 for a car retail outlet, I received a call from a distraught managing director who had taken it upon himself to install a piece of software onto the server. The software he had installed was very minor, and he went into great detail about his procedure. The last part of the install was to reboot the server, as instructed by the installation program.
He arranged for all of his users to shut down their workstations while the reboot was taking place, so several of the 40 users had little or nothing to do. The server shut itself down and began to reboot. After the initial screen flashed, a message appeared saying "Missing Operating System."
It was at this point that he called me. I explained to him that the piece of software he had installed probably wasn't designed to be installed on a server. I went on to tell him that he shouldn't treat the server as another workstation and should not just install software without referring to an expert. I explained that in losing the operating system, the whole server would need to be reinstalled from a backup.
He asked me how long this would take, as without the system the company would not be able to sell, service, or repair any vehicles and he had a lot of people now doing nothing. When I told him about a week, he nearly started to cry. So at this point I suggested we could try one thing that might work before we went down the reinstallation route. He eagerly awaited my instructions, and I told him to power off, remove the floppy disk from the drive, and reboot. I knew this was the problem. He did too once I had given him the instruction. Did you? Sometimes the simple answers are more appreciated than the complex ones.
