2009
07.07

Symptoms: Windows 2003 hangs after booting and never reach the login screen.
Background: ACPI stands for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. It is an open standard that defines platform for hardware discovery, configuration, power management and monitoring.

Possible Cause and Resolution

  1. Cause: CMOS Battery is Dying

    Resolution: Goto CMOS setup, scroll to POWER MANAGEMENT SETUP, hit Enter, look at it, Hit ESC to exit, Anwser Y to save.

    Source: Win2003 freezes at acpitabl.dat solution

  2. Cause: RAID Problem

    Resolution:

    1. Turn off the server.
    2. Unplug one of the hard disk in your RAID.
    3. Boot the server. The RAID status now should change to degraded
    4. You should now be able to see the login screen.
    5. Login, do the necessary backup
    6. Plugin the hard disk, rebuild the RAID array with its software

    Source: sbs 2003 r2 acpitabl.dat hang in safe mode

I stopped my search as the solution no 2 solved my problem :) I am still not clear with the exact cause, but I suspect that the RAID controller was having problem synchronizing between hard disks (my server is using RAID-1).

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5 comments so far

Add Your Comment
  1. I never comment on these things after finding a solution, but this time after looknig for 2 hours and comping across the SIMPLEST solution that worked perfectly, I needed to. You made my night! Yes, basically break the raid if you have one, remove a disk physically, and then boot. It worked. Run a chkdsk/f, get it to boot again perfectly, and then shut down, re-add the drive and have it resynch. Whalla! Done! Thanks ever so much again. Sometimes people don’t post something that is obvious, and I should have known better myself. Getting stuck and being frustrated it’s easy to overlook. -Mike

  2. Thank YOU. You have made my day

  3. TWO DAYS I’VE BEEN FIGHTING THIS AND YOU SOLVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    You’re my hero!!!!!!!!

    Thanks.

    Mike.

  4. man you r great thank u

  5. Well, how about the people who doesn`t have RAIDs on the machine?
    All I do have is one IDE HDD and CD-ROM (not RAID, not SATA, not SCSI).
    All the symptoms are same – haning before Win 2k3 splash and hangs at acpitabl.dat in Safe Mode. 4 days here dying about the issue.. ;(