VHD boot and c00002e2 Errors

author Richard Fennell calendar Mar 18, 2010 · 3 min read · Uncategorised  ·
Share on: linkedin copy

For some reason that is beyond me now I did not setup my Lab Manager test system to be a VHD boot. So before installing the 2010 RC version I decided to P2V this system (on the same hardware) to make backups easier whilst testing. All seemed to go well

  1. I used IMAGEX to create a WIM of the disk
  2. Created an empty VHD
  3. Used IMAGEX to apply the WIM to the VHD
  4. Formatted the PC with a default Windows 7 install
  5. Added a VHD boot Windows Server 2008R2 to the PC, tested this all booted OK
  6. Replaced the test VHD with my own and rebooted

…. and it just went into a reboot cycle. Pressing F8 and stopping the reboot on error I saw I had a “c00002e2 Directory Services could not start” error. I managed to get into the PC by pressing F8 and using the AD recovery mode (safe mode did not work). After much fiddling around I eventually noticed that my boot drive was drive D: not C: as I would have expected. My VHD and parent drive had reversed letter assignments. So when the AD services tried to start they look on the parent Windows 7 partition (C:) for their data and hence failed.

I think the root cause was the way I had attached the empty VHD to used IMAGEX. I had not done it using WINPE, but just created in my Windows 7 instance and attached the VHD as drive D: before copying on the WIM

So my revised method was

  1. I used IMAGEX to create a WIM of the disk (actually used the one I already had as there was nothing wrong with it, which was a good job as I had formatted the disk)
  2. Formatted the PC with a default Windows 7 install
  3. Added a VHD boot Windows Server 2008R2 to the PC, tested this all booted OK
  4. Copied my WIM file to the same directory as my newly created W2k8R2.VHD
  5. Copied IMAGEX to this directory
  6. Booted of a Win7 DVD
  7. Pressed Shift F10 to get a prompt at the first opportunity
    1. Ran DISKPART
    2. Select Disk 1
    3. Select Part 1
    4. Detail Part – this was the 100Mb system partition Windows 7 creates and was assigned as drive C: (note when you boots Windows 7 the drive letters get reassigned just to confuse you, as to look at this you would expect your Windows 7 boot drive to be D:)
    5. Assign Letter = Q – this set the system partition to be drive Q, but any unused letter would do
    6. Select vdisk file:d:vhdw2k8r2.vhd
    7. attach vdisk – this loaded the VHD and assigned it the letter C: as this was now not in use
    8. list disk
    9. Select disk 2
    10. Select Part 1
    11. detail Part – checked the drive letter was correct
    12. I then exited DISKPART and from the same command prompt ran IMAGEX to put the WIM on this new drive C:
  8. Rebooted and it worked

So the technical tip is make sure your drive letter assignments are what you think they are, it may not be as obvious as you expect.