Hi,Our new Windows Server 2008 box is crashing at an alarming rate of a few times a month at the moment (and taking our VoIP Phone System with it when it does)Unfortunatly it is not logging any System or Application Events which offer any explanation as to why this is happening...Does anyone know how to create some kind os System/Page File Dump so I can try to analyse what's going on?Any other tips on how to go about troubleshooting this......would be greatly appreciatedThanksMike DowerSys Admin - Ministry of Sound

hi there,i have read the description and to start the troubleshooting , i would like to explain a few things and also probe as much as question to go to the rooot cause analysis.when you said the serve ris crashing , first thing is are you seeing an BSOD ( blue screen ) ?, if so please do paste the bugcheck code and the sys file if it is disaplayingor is it just a system hang, if it is just a system hang then you might need to check during which operation / action the system is getting hang for ex: when you try to shutdown or restart nothing happens .Or is your problem only belong to applicatin hang where OS is behaving normally.Majority times the system hang issues are occuring due to 3rd paty applications which are alien to MS components . so a better way to troubleshoot is safe mode with networking / safe mode to check if the issue occur and if the issue is not occuring you need to run the relevant tools to find the root cuaseFollowing are some of the best and importatnt tools to diagonize the issue.a) task manare, to check which process is acquiring maximum number of handles , memory etc. b) Process explorer is great tool to see and troubleshoot majority of applicaiton hang / crash issues ( please let us know if you need more info on this tool) c) when you find out which process is causing the issue then you can use either drwtsn32.exe which is MS inbuilt tool to dump the process or adplus dump utility or dumpbin utility to dump the proces and analyze the threads, process, memory , stack etcc paramters.d) the final thing would be getting complete memory dump , you can do it by going to the following location right click my computer--> properties ->advance-->performance-->setings-->advance-->change and set the page file before collecting the dump and you can choose either mini dump , complete memory dump. .Once you have taken the complete memory dump , you can use Windbg utility ( microsoft Utility ) to read the dumpHope the above information is helpful and please do reply back if you have any questions.sainath Windows Driver Development

Hi, Thanks for your reply.....the main problem I have is that we get no warning the server is going to crash/hang, we only become aware of it when out VoIP phone system goes down (the server in question is running Microsoft OCS) The server always restarts itself so by the time I get to it, it is back up and running (so no chance to see if there has been a BSOD)Is there a way to configure the server to not automatically restart? So if it hangs/crashes it will stay on the BSOD and not reboot? Or if not can I configure the server to dump it's RAM to a file forlater analysis? The Reliability Monitor is recording these unexpected shut-downs/restarts but unfortunatly it offers no explainationas to why they're happening! Mike

hi mike,there is no way in windows that you can stop BSOD , as i explained you BSOD is not a error , but its a prevention from a huge risk , when OS detects its camoflauge to BSOD so that the OS doesnt crash ( unrecoverable error ) Yes when ever a BSOD occurs the OS will dump the process into a .dmp file . please search for a .dmp file on your system and send it to us for anaylsis. sainath Windows Driver Development

Hi Mike, According to the description, it seems to be server crash issue, we may need to analyze the crash dump file to analysis the root cause of the issue. Please contact Microsoft Customer Service directly so that the memory dump file can be analyzed and this issue can be resolved efficiently. You may obtain the phone numbers for specific technology request please take a look at the web site listed below: https://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx?iid=174859&iguid=56907522-6886-4238-a70f-a1d06a4473c7_2_2&rdpath=1 For your reference: Here are some steps to temporally to make the system not automatically restart when the issue occurs. Steps. 1. Right-click "My Computer" and select "Properties" on the desktop 2. Click on the "Advanced" 3. Click "Settings" in the area of "Startup and Recovery" 4. In the prompt dialog box, uncheck the "Automatically restart" in the area of "System failure" 5. Click OK. I also included a MSDN blog to describe how to install Windbg and get the memory dump as followed. How to install Windbg and get your first memory dump http://blogs.msdn.com/johan/archive/2007/01/11/how-to-install-windbg-and-get-your-first-memory-dump.aspx Hope the issue will be resolved soon.David Shen - MSFT