What to do if the operating system on a server won't boot

If the operating system on your server won't boot, you have the following tools at your disposal:

• iDRAC Virtual Console — access the server's console remotely via iDRAC to see what is happening during boot and interact with the boot process. See How to access the out-of-band management of a Dell server for details.
• Boot into a custom ISO image via iDRAC — use iDRAC's Virtual Media feature to boot the server into a custom ISO image (e.g., a live Linux environment or a rescue disk) and perform recovery from there. See How to boot a server into a custom ISO image using iDRAC for details.
• Rescue mode — use the Customer Portal's built-in Rescue mode feature to boot the server into a minimal recovery environment, allowing you to access the server's disks via SSH and perform recovery operations. See How to restore a dedicated server using Rescue mode for details.
• Password reset — if the OS won't boot because of an authentication issue or a locked account, consider resetting the root/administrator password. See the password reset guides in the Server Recovery & Password Reset section.
• Contact support — if none of the above resolve the issue, contact Servers.com support for assistance.