She replied offline, very likely a single bit flip, tragedy, they aren't one release later (Longhorn), where this would've probably been non-disruptively handled, logged, and possibly self-healed: http://blogs.technet.com/efleis/archive/2005/01.aspx
Anyway, this kind of thing is usually hardware ... While there are much better disk sub-system testers, one that is freely available to any box with Exchange is jetstress. You might give that a try. If you can reproduce the event / error with jetstress I would not use that box in production. If you do reproduce the issue several times (several times is key, as you want a trend before you start playing the variable game), some things you might vary (one at a time): - Try making sure you have the latest driver and motherboard / controller firmware. Then see if you can reproduce. - Try a different RAID configuration, such as RAID1/RAID1+0 if you're on RAID5. - Try swapping out the hard drives, one at a time. - Adding the jetstress files to the exclude list in the Anti-Virus software. (A low probablility, I've never heard of Anit-Virus causing this paticular type of error, and I can't imagine the mistake an anti-virus product would have to have to cause this side effect) - If you can reproduce it several times, you could followup with Dell. Good luck. I'm not sure if I answered your question ... Cheers, BrettSh On Sun, 4 Dec 2005, Eric Fleischman wrote: > Going back to the original post, I'm not sure I fully understand the > problem yet. Susan, can you define "ntds.dit file corruption" for us? > What sort of corruption? What errors/events lead you to believe this? > Specifically, I'm interested in errors from NTDS ISAM or ESE if you > have any. > > > > ________________________________ > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Susan Bradley, CPA aka Ebitz - SBS Rocks > [MVP] > Sent: Sat 12/3/2005 10:58 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [ActiveDir] Ntds.dit file corruption > > > > SBS box [with Windows 2003 sp1 since September] > > RE: [ActiveDir] Database Corruption: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg32676.html > > We have a SBS 2003 sp1 box with a corrupt ntds.dit that the Consultant > and PSS have been banging on. Could not get the services back running, > changed the RPC service to local system and some service came back up [I > don't have all the details but the consultant opened a support case of > SRX051202605433]. > > Bottom line they are about going to give up and start a restore but > before they do that I'd like to get the view of the AD gods and > goddesses around here. From all that I've seen, read, seen in the SBS > newsgroup, the corruption of ntds.dit is rare to nil and an underlying > cause is hardware issues [raid, disk subsystem]. This doesn't just > happen. > > The VAP asked if not properly excluding the ad databases from the a/v > would cause this/trigger this and my expectation is 'no', given that I > doubt the majority of us in SBSland properly set up exclusions > Virus scanning recommendations on a Windows 2000 or on a Windows Server > 2003 domain controller: > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;822158 > > If this were my hardware and box, I'd be putting this sucker on the > operating table and getting an autopsy before putting it back online. > > Are we right in being paranoid now about this hardware? For you guys in > big server land you'd just slide over another box into that server role. > > --------------------------------------- > Stupid question alert.... > > Okay so we know that having a secondary/additional domain controller is > a good thing even in SBSland...but question.... many times the second > server in SBSland is a terminal server box because we do not support TS > in app mode on our PDCs. So we've established that having a domain > controller and a terminal server is a security issue [see Windows > Security resource kit, NIST Terminal services hardening guide, etc > etc....] If our second server is a member server handing out TS > externally, should that be a candidate for the additional DC? Are the > issues of TS on a DC ... true for 'any' DC? Would it be better than to > Vserver/VPC a Win2k3 inside a workstation in the network if a third > server box was not feasible? > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx > List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx > List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ > > > List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
