Does anyone know how to solve this issue? WS08 R2 (Enterprise Edition) hangs on startup and displays: "Preparing to configure windows" "Do not turn off your computer" After a few minutes the computer restarts and continues in the same loop. This installation had been working fine since Jan of this year. Last night I installed Acronis' new backup platform "Backup and Repair". Ran a backup of a drive. Backup got to about 50% without any issues, then went to bed. In the morning, computer was in an endless loop of displaying this message when booting, and crashing after a few minutes. It could also be related to a windows update, since the computer had been in a restart loop when I woke up, and a required restart from a windows update could have put it there, if Acronis didn't force the computer to restart, which I don't think it did. I've tried using last known configuration, doesn't work. I've tried booting in safe mode, I get the same issue. In either case, I get the "preparing to configure windows message" and then it crashes. I can load the repair utility, but I don't know what commands to use to try and repair. Can anyone tell me what the command line commands are that I need to use to do startup repair from the WS08R2 repair console? I've only done it for fixing the boot code before, and I didn't really find what I was looking for when searching online... Thanks!

Hi, if you had regularly backed up the server, you can perform a bare-metal restore. HTHEdoardo Benussi - Microsoft MVP Management Infrastructure - Systems Administration https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/Profile/Benussi Windows Server Italian Forum Moderator edo[at]mvps[dot]org

Well, I had actually been trying out R2 on my laptop. (considered moving from WS08 when I heard Microsoft was going to allow WS08 licenses to activate R2) I was previously using Acronis True Image Echo for backups, but the latest version of TI Echo doesn't support R2 (but does supoprt WS08)--I needed to move to their totally new version. Anyway backing up this R2 installation wasn't too critical. I don't have data stored on the hard drive, but I do have software I need for a project I'm working on installed on it. It's a company license and I don't have the key to reinstall. I'm almost done with the project, but getting it installed on a personal computer was a hassel and I'd rather not stir the water again. So--that being said, is there anything I can do to attempt to recover and resolve the startup issues?

Anyway backing up this R2 installation wasn't too critical. I don't have data stored on the hard drive, but I do have software I need for a project I'm working on installed on it. It's a company license and I don't have the key to reinstall. I'm almost done with the project, but getting it installed on a personal computer was a hassel and I'd rather not stir the water again. So--that being said, is there anything I can do to attempt to recover and resolve the startup issues? if you had backed up your server when this software was yet installed, performing a bare metal recovery as reported here http://www.wbadmin.info/articles/howto-bare-metal-restores-windows-server-2008-backup.html you can solve the problem. Edoardo Benussi - Microsoft MVP Management Infrastructure - Systems Administration https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/Profile/Benussi Windows Server Italian Forum Moderator edo[at]mvps[dot]org

Hi guys, I had the same problem, but for my side the problem will be resolve by itself. You just need to wait 1 hour in the sreen : "Preparing to configure windows" "Do not turn off your computer" and eventually the logon screen appear. :)

It is even more stupid than waiting 1 hr. If you press Ctrl-Alt-Del you'll get to the logon screen. the 'preparing to configure windows...' just does not go away when complete, so you wait and wait and wait and wait. D-B-S

Excellent... Saved me wasting another 90 minutes....

perfect, that was the answer. I thought sitting at this screen for 16 hours would be long enough. Just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and the normal screen pops up. (WS08 R2)