hello,
i am struggling to recover what i can from my a faulty VM. the guest OS is Windows 2000 Advanced Service, the problem began when the host machine was reset unexpectedly -- somehow this broke Windows, ever since it renders a BSOD shortly after the Windows splash screen begins. the BSOD says:
Page_Fault_In_Nonpaged_Area
(memory address) - ntoskrnl.exe
...it goes on to suggest Safe Mode, and disabling cache/shadow memory settings in BIOS. i have tried these to no avail.
i have also tried booting to a CD and running the W2K installer. but i cant do a non-destructive reinstall because it cant find the drive partition (IDE in VMWare).
i could re-image the whole thing but i wish to recover what i can.
to that end:
1) any suggestions? its weird that Windows can boot to the splash screen, but the CD installer cant find the partition.
2) is there any way to cherry pick files off the VM when powered down?
thanks very much,
matt
also i found this on the cause of the error:
"This is an error with a program accessing memory. The memory address
that it tried to access was either empty, or didn't have the contents
that it expected to find.
This can happen (most commonly) due to
corrupted memory (RAM, VRAM, mobo, cpu, virtual memory) or it can be due
to a corruption in a software driver (or even malware)."
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t193136.html
Are you sure the Virtual Machine is using an IDE vHDD as Windows 2000 defaults to SCSI and that would explain why you can't see it from the Windows CD. Check your settings and if SCSI then use the VMware SCSI Drivers and set the vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp file as the Floppy for the Virtual Machine in the target Virtual Machine's Settings sheet. This floppy image contains the VMware SCSI Disk Drivers needed when booting with the Windows 2000/XP CD and you need to press F6 when it says "Press F6 if you need to install..." near the bottom of the Virtual Machine window and it will then prompt for the driver after it continues to load additional files. Just follow the prompts.
boot the VM into a LiveCD like Knoppix or BartPE and see if the data is still there.
It is really strange that you can not find the disk with the install CD.
Windows 2000 advanced server has drivers for buslogic and IDE - so it should find the disks
___________________________________
VMX-parameters- Workstation FAQ -[ MOA-liveCD|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VM-Sickbay
woody- yes, i am positive it is an IDE drive. i created the VM from a physical machine which was IDE; and viewing the HD settings confirms it is IDE.
i am downloading Knoppix now to see if that can help.
so just to confirm -- there is no way to browse a VM's file system and copy stuff off it? Parellels does this so im curious.
thanks,
matt
so just to confirm -- there is no way to browse a VM's file system and copy stuff off it?
Ctrl-click the target Virtual Machine Package and select Open With > VMDKMounter
continuum - Knoppix is sweet. yes, my data is there, im browsing the partition's files now.
however the mouse is screwy in Knoppix, it appears to be "off" by several inches, difficult to navigate. any trick to using it properly that im missing?
meanwhile im going to try to connect a usb volume and copy stuff over.
thanks,
matt
Knoppix for the win!! booted to it, and despite the no-mouse sitution was able to mess around. opened a terminal and rebooted. and then.... my guest OS (Windows 2000 Advanced Server) started working again! it was able to get past its BSOD trouble point...
dont know that i really did anything, but its working again, woot! "Thanks, Knoppix!"
thanks dude.
matt
the mouse of Knoppix behaves better when you change the guestOS to Linux before you start the VM
___________________________________
VMX-parameters- Workstation FAQ -[ MOA-liveCD|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VM-Sickbay