2003 Server restart taking hours
We have a Dell PE 2600 running SBS 2003 SP2. We had Arcserve 15 installed at the backup. We were having a problem with the Sharepoint agent and when we called CA, they said that the entire CA installation was corrupt and removed it. When the server was restarted, it took 2+ hours to complete the reboot only to not find out that several services inclusing IPSEC, SMTP, IMAP, among others did not start. Restarted again and 2+ hours later are still waiting. Would prefer to not do a full restore. Any thoughts?
I have seen this before when I had an SBS server using two NIC. We had a gateway value specified on the internal nic, and it should have been blank.
You'll want to rule out the network: Disable the adapters and look for the symptoms to change.
You'll also want to determine if it's hard drive related.
Are you running RAID? Have you checked the RAID status?
Does the Event VIewer give you any clues as to what is happening while you wait?
You'll also want to determine if it's hard drive related.
Are you running RAID? Have you checked the RAID status?
Does the Event VIewer give you any clues as to what is happening while you wait?
You can also check in safe mode to see if the issue exists. Seems like some services or NIC's is causing this.
If the IPSec service isn't running check this out:
http://rcmtech.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/no-network-connectivity-tofrom-server-2003-sp2/
You could also enable boot logging (press F8 just before the first Server 2003 splash screen appears), something might stand out (the file created is C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt).
http://rcmtech.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/no-network-connectivity-tofrom-server-2003-sp2/
You could also enable boot logging (press F8 just before the first Server 2003 splash screen appears), something might stand out (the file created is C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt).
ASKER
Here is an update. after researching last night, we found that the IIS Admin service would not start which of course all the other services depend on. We dug a little deeper and found that the RPC service was missing. I found an old EE post that explained how to fix RPC using Group Policy and we got RPC back and rebooted as it instructed. When the server came back up, RPC still looked good but the IIS Admin service is in a stopping state and we can not get it to change from Stopping. If we do IISRESET, the status in the DOS window shows that the services were stopped successfully (which is not true as IIS Admin still shows stopping) and then it hangs on starting services.
Does it still sound like a NIC?
Note: Every restart has taken hours. so I prefer that we not restart the server unless necessary.
Does it still sound like a NIC?
Note: Every restart has taken hours. so I prefer that we not restart the server unless necessary.
Can you respond on the IPSec comment above? Is the server contactable over the network, and if not is the IPSec service stopped/running? How about the IPSec registry key referenced?
ASKER
IPSEC is running. Server shows it is communicating with the Symantec Management server and logmein servers but I can not ping it from another computer in the network.
You need to reduce the number of possible screwed up areas so the troubleshooting focus becomes narrower.
Uninstall Arcserve and anything related to Symantec,...infact remove anything that is "3rd party" and get the thing back to a "pure" MS SBS System as much as possible.
Get the server running correctly without 3rd party influences.
Then reinstall the 3rd party products that you need once the system is in a proper state of operation.
Uninstall Arcserve and anything related to Symantec,...infact remove anything that is "3rd party" and get the thing back to a "pure" MS SBS System as much as possible.
Get the server running correctly without 3rd party influences.
Then reinstall the 3rd party products that you need once the system is in a proper state of operation.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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But the next obvious question would be,....if you had to manually start services,...does that mean they will not start up automatically the next time you reboot?
ASKER
I stopped the Symantec mail security and the speed of the server returned to normal but service issues remained. Finished reinstalling enough CA components to perform a system state restore. Before I could run the system state restore, all services started working although some required manual starting. Everything is working normally now. We are assuming that some cirtical file got ripped out with the CA removal and the install this morning put it back.