In general, I fully agree with you. I'd rather have retired this server and built a new replacement. Unfortunately, with this location being down for a week already and the missing data access causing a business impact, returning the server quickly became a big part of the decision. It's always fun to have your boss show up at the door and say "Well?..."
Even though data is on a different partition, the process of installing the operating system from scratch and then recreating shares, printers and re-installing Arcserve, Vipre, Dell Server Admin and other utilites would have added more days to downtime. In the end, with the testing we've done, we felt it was an acceptably low risk that the problem would recur. Only time will tell now. Thanks. ---------------------- Bob Hartung Dir of I.T. Wisco Industries, Inc. 736 Janesville St. Oregon, WI 53575 Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215 Fax: (608) 835-7399 e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com _____ From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]] To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:19:55 -0600 Subject: RE: Bringing a Win2K3 server back online IMO it’s an awful alternative to a rebuild. You have absolutely no idea what caused the original problem, and absolutely no idea what’s made it go away. Chances of it coming back are likely pretty high. Is the file server data not on a separate partition? Shouldn’t even need to restore anything from backup assuming it is. Thanks, Brian Desmond [email protected] w – 312.625.1438 | c – 312.731.3132 From: Bob Hartung [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 11:08 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Bringing a Win2K3 server back online I discussed this problem with an MS tech from a reseller we work with and he agreed with your opinion about being able to plug it in. The only thing I did with the server prior to hooking it up to our network was assign it an 172.16.x.x IP address for this network and disabled the DNS and DHCP services. Everything came up fine and I was able to re-apply all the Windows Updates that had been overwritten by the Repair Install. Once that was done, everything seemed to be working properly. The tech and I checked the DNS both on our primary domain controller as well as the restored server and they were properly synchronized and showing the new IP address for the restored server. The last thing to do is disconnect the server from our network, re-assign its original 172.17.x.x IP address, re-enable DNS and DHCP and then ship it off. I know most people would probably restore from a recent backup but this wasn't a bad alternative either. I guess it depends on the circumstances but it's a viable alternative. ---------------------- Bob Hartung Dir of I.T. Wisco Industries, Inc. 736 Janesville St. Oregon, WI 53575 Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215 Fax: (608) 835-7399 e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com _____ From: Brian Desmond [mailto:[email protected]] To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:11:58 -0600 Subject: RE: Bringing a Win2K3 server back online Should be able to just plug it in. You’ll need to re-apply Windows Updates as well. Aside from the fact that it should work, personally I think you need to wipe this box and reload. All you’ve done is taken an unknown problem and applied an unknown bandaid to it. Thanks, Brian Desmond [email protected] w – 312.625.1438 | c – 312.731.3132 From: Bob Hartung [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 10:21 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Bringing a Win2K3 server back online I'm still working on this server with no network cable plugged in. I tried firing up Management Console to see what was there. Got an error message that it couldn't load. After the hair on the back of my neck relaxed, I realized the Repair Install was done with SP1 media. After apply SP2, I could view the Active Directory stuff as usual. Everything looks as it should in there. I have set both DHCP Server and DNS Server services to manual. Under these circumstances, would an Active Directory restore be necessary? By the time this server gets back to its home, about 2 weeks will have gone by since it synced up. ---------------------- Bob Hartung Dir of I.T. Wisco Industries, Inc. 736 Janesville St. Oregon, WI 53575 Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215 Fax: (608) 835-7399 e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com _____ From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:[email protected]] To: NT System Admin Issues [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:23:41 -0600 Subject: Re: Bringing a Win2K3 server back online Yes, he did. Missed that. Twice. :) In which case, restoring and just putting it back out there is not a good idea. You want to perform a normal restore, and let the DC sync back up via replication http://www.petri.co.il/restore-windows-server-2003-active-directory.htm Don't perform an authoritative restore. (Or, just DCPROMO it twice and rebuild, but that's more timely for no good reason) ASB http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker Harnessing the Advantages of Technology for the SMB market… On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 9:59 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: But he said it is a domain controller... "Andrew S. Baker" <[email protected]> 11/22/2011 08:57 AM Please respond to "NT System Admin Issues" <[email protected]> To "NT System Admin Issues" <[email protected]> Press this button if the "To" is a fax number. Enter in the fax number like 123-456-7890. cc Subject Re: Bringing a Win2K3 server back online It's just a member server. You should have no issues with bringing it back online. Just be sure to rejoin the domain. -ASB: http://about.me/Andrew.S.Baker Sent from my Motorola Droid On Nov 22, 2011 9:32 AM, "Bob Hartung" <[email protected]> wrote: We had a file server at a remote location suffer corruption from a software install gone bad. The server would appear to be booting normally, making it to the Windows 2003 splash screen with the progress indicator. Unfortunately, the screen would then go black and the system would reboot. The same thing would happen trying to boot in Safe Mode and Last Known Good Configuration. This server is the only server at this remote location and acts as a file server, DHCP server and domain controller. This server and PCs at this location are in their own subnet (172.17.x.x) but is a member of our single AD domain. The subnet at my location is 172.16.x.x. Since this location doesn't have an IT person on staff, it was decided they'd ship to server back to me so I could restore it from a tape backup. When I received the server, I decided I'd start by trying a Repair Install. It couldn't hurt since I was eventually planning on a restore from tape anyway. At this point, the server has been offline for about a week. The Repair Install actually seems to have worked. The system came up with its normal desktop background but then stopped before loading the desktop icons with a requirement to activate the operating system. I did that and the desktop came up. I have not hooked the server up to the network here yet. After all that, here's my question. Will I cause a lot of AD problems if I assign this server a 172.16.x.x IP address and bring it up and let it sync up with our domain? I want to make sure it's functioning properly. Also, I've never done a Repair Install before. Does a Repair Install change things to a system that need to be manually reconfigured? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks. ---------------------- Bob Hartung Dir of I.T. Wisco Industries, Inc. 736 Janesville St. Oregon, WI 53575 Tel: (608) 835-3106 x215 Fax: (608) 835-7399 e-mail: bhartung(at)wiscoind.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
