Directory Service cannot start Error Status 0xc00002e1 on Windows 2003 after Exchange 2003

[Muz Francis]

I have a Windows Server Standard 2003 Primary Domain Controller, on
which I have just installed Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.

The Exchange Server installation completed successfully, and asked me
to reboot.

After rebooting, W2003 displays "The Active Directory is rebuilding
indices. Please wait..." for some time, and then an error message
appears "Security Accounts Manager initialization failed because of
the following error: Directory Service cannot start. Error Status:
0xc00002e1. Please click OK to shutdown this system and reboot into
Directory Services Restore Mode, check the event log for more detailed
information"

I have searched Microsoft support, and all the resolutions listed
there are Windows 2000, not Windows 2003.

Please help!!

 

[Matjaz Ladava [MVP]]

I had this issue yesterday and the problem was related to the security
settings on system drive. (It was a W2k system, but it would be the same
with WS2k3). Boot into DSRM and check that SYSTEM has permission on system
drive + windows directory + \windows\ntds. You can as well run System
Configuration and Analysis snapin to check your system against setup
template.
After I changed security settings, the system booted up normaly.

--
Regards

Matjaz Ladava, MCSE (NT4 & 2000), Windows MVP
(e-mail address removed)
http://ladava.com

 

[Muz Francis]

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately the problem is not related to
security.

I tracked the problem in the Event Log after booting into DSRM to be:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: NTDS ISAM
Event Category: General
Event ID: 481
Date: 19/08/2003
Time: 4:41:18 PM
User: N/A
Computer: PDCSVR
Description:
NTDS (504) NTDSA: An attempt to read from the file
"C:\WINDOWS\NTDS\edb.log" at offset 4722688 (0x0000000000481000) for
65536 (0x00010000) bytes failed after 11 seconds with system error 23
(0x00000017): "Data error (cyclic redundancy check). ". The read
operation will fail with error -1022 (0xfffffc02). If this error
persists then the file may be damaged and may need to be restored from
a previous backup.


This is my PDC that is dead - I have a BDC running only Active
Directory. Can I just copy across the C:\WINDOWS\NTDS\ from the BDC
onto the PDC to restore?

Cheers,
Murray

 

[Matjaz Ladava [MVP]]

Ah, then you have probably a corupted AD database. You can not copy AD
database from another server. Boot into DSRM, use ntdsutils and do a
database recovery. (files menu). First try with some DB tests with ntdsutil.
W2k does not have PDC/BDC, but just equal (more or less) DC's.

--
Regards

Matjaz Ladava, MCSE (NT4 & 2000), Windows MVP
(e-mail address removed)
http://ladava.com