Question:

I have a Domain controller that for some reason will not boot, I have tried to do last known configuration and boot into safe mode and non will work. When I boot into safe mode it gets stuck when loading the winnt/system32/acpitabl.dat file. Does anyone have any suggestions on things I can try to make this thing boot. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you very much.

Solution:

If this is just a domain controller and serves no other function, I would advise just reformatting it, as there should be no vital data on the box itself that isn’t already on your other DCs.

So first, run a meta data cleanup in your domain, to remove ALL references on your current DCs to this server (http://www.petri.co.il/delete_failed_dcs_from_ad.htm)

Once that’s done, just reformat and reinstall the OS, then you can just rejoin the server to the domain, and then repromote it to DC status. Once replication is complete from the other DCs, the DC will be back to how it was before.

This could save a lot of time trying to troubleshoot a problem when there really isn’t any need, and you could have this box back up and running within a few hours or less…

HTH

Pete