Windows Server 2016 VM Won't Boot - Repeated Problem Across Data Center

Question

Today while running Windows Updates on our non-essential systems during the day time I had my 4th VM fail to boot. It's just a blue screen with no error codes or anything. It's got a QR code on the screen for about 10 seconds before it reboots. The QR code on the screen takes me to windows.com/stopcode and it tells me nothing useful. Choosing to boot into safe mode has the same result of getting a blue screen with QR code.

This problem has occurred on Windows 2012 and 2016 Hypervisor. It's occurred on a SAN and on a VM that was saved to a local hard drive. Across the past year out of the 4 VM's that have failed they've been on 3 different servers. In todays case I lost a Windows 2016 server running Syslog and FTP on a Windows 2016 Hypervisor. The VM did very little and is less than a year old.

I attempted to use WinPE to rebuild the boot sector and instead of a blue screen got a warning there was no OS installed on the drive specified. I've got another guy in the office who's doing some testing and he can mount the VHDX file as a secondary HD to view its contents. So the VM doesn't appear to be corrupted, and the boot sector it fine. The issue is during the beginning of the windows boot process.

Has anyone run into this before and found a way to repair the busted VM's? We do our Windows Updates quarterly so it's only ever during updates that we notice this problem. If we restore a backed up VM it will have the same problem. Once we go back through a month of backups and find the VM is busted we just move on and rebuild it from scratch.

Answer 1

Thank you for the response.

I am able to boot up off the 2016 Installation Media and get to a command prompt. From there I can run SFC and CHKDSK and they come back clean. Whenever I try to use the upgrade option to do an overlay I get the below message:

The computer started using the Windows installation media. Remove the installation media and restart your computer so that Windows starts normally. Then, insert the installation media and restart the upgrade.

Is there any other things I can run from the CLI options? For everything I've read lately it's hard to believe there isn't more hyper-v utilities to troubleshoot problems. The only thing I could find was powershells' repair-vm command that isn't what I need. We don't have the system manager in order to get access to the Repair-SCVirtualMachine commands either.

Answer 2

Hi,

Thank you for your reply!

I appreciate it that you can give us the bump file information, while analyzing the data is beyond the work of our forum. So, I strongly suggest you to seek direct assistance from our Microsoft Support Engineer through Microsoft Customer Support Services. Our Microsoft Support Engineer will take phone calls directly with you about your issue. Here is the contant link:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/global-customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

In addition, the third point that I mentioned is to download a image for Server 2016 and load it onto your Hyper-V Manager>> VM settings>> IDE controller>> DVD drive >> Image file. Then click F8 to boot your VM, the page will turn to recovery. If the recovery works, then your machine is fine.

And here is the article that can guide you to download your image and load it on your VM:

https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/use-isos-hyper-v/

(Note: Information posted in the given link is hosted by a third party. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy and effectiveness of information. )

Thank you for your support for our work!

Best regards
Joann

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Answer 3

Thank you for the response. I tried attaching the log file but it won't attach so I'm pasting the output below. There isn't much in there.

==================================================
Dump File : SYSLOG MEMORY.DMP
Crash Time : 3/22/2021 4:16:08 PM
Bug Check String : CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED
Bug Check Code : 0x000000ef
Parameter 1 : ffffac06c46f1800 Parameter 2 : 0000000000000000
Parameter 3 : 0000000000000000 Parameter 4 : 0000000000000000
Caused By Driver :
Caused By Address :
File Description :
Product Name :
Company :
File Version :
Processor : x64
Crash Address :
Stack Address 1 :
Stack Address 2 :
Stack Address 3 :
Computer Name :
Full Path : C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\SYSLOG MEMORY.DMP
Processors Count : 2
Major Version : 15
Minor Version : 14393
Dump File Size : 260,927,302

Dump File Time : 3/22/2021 4:16:24 PM

The backups we have on hand are up to 2 months old. We do weekly VM and we do seperate backups for the DB's and exported data from our software packages. All of the VM's we've tried to restore has also had the issue. We have not tried to retrieve the off site monthly's because it's faster to get it rebuilt than it is to contact the owners and get the tapes.

I'm not sure I understand # 3 on your list. Is there a way for me to try and recover the VM? If it's not the boot sector, and it's not the File System, then what else can I troubleshoot?

Answer 4

Hi,

Thank you for your reply!

Based on your descriptions, I would like you to follow the following steps to troubleshoot your issue:

1.If you have checkpoints for your VMs or you have done the backup for your VMs, you can try to restore your VMs, to see if the issue can be resolved.

2.According to your blue screen issue, you should first collect your dump files. About how to collect your dump files, follow the guidance below:

https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB56023

3.You can try to load image for Server 2016 to boot. To see whether you can recover your VM. If the booting process goes smoothly, then your virtual machine is fine.

4.If you cannot recover your VM and you need further research into your dump files, you may have to seek direct assistance from a Microsoft Support Engineer through Microsoft Customer Support Services. You can contact Microsoft Product Support directly to discuss additional support options you may have available, by contacting us via the below website:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/global-customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

Thank you for your time!

Best regards
Joann

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Answer 5

I cannot do an overlay because it requires Windows to boot up.

I did a chkdsk and sfc and both came back clean. The file system on this looks good.

I'm trying to figure out how to use the hyper v recovery features but I can't get them to work. If I load the hyper-v modules it still won't show up as a valid command for me. This is one of the pages I'm looking at for VM recovery options in powershell: https://techgenix.com/repair-hyper-v-hosts/