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jeffschickFlag for United States of America

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SBS 2003 Sever ran out of space and will not restart

Hi All,
I am having a space issue with my sbs 2003 server. It stopped sending and receiving emails, which alerted me to something being wrong. Then, when I logged in remotely, I discovered that it had 0 bytes of free space on the C partition and 52gb remaining on the D partition. I was able to run disk cleanup, which only gave it about 15 mb. Since I have had space issues before (but usually it dropping to about 100mb) if I have not restarted the SBS server in a while (and it has been a few months since I last restarted it), I figured that it just needed to have a reboot to fix the issue.

However, now since I rebooted it, it will not come online. I am located about 1000 miles away and don't know if this is something I can fix remotely, or walk a non-technical person through fixing. If I need to fly there, I can, so please tell me what I would need to do to fix it if I had to fly there.

Also, I already have moved the exchange database to the D partition, and I think the pagefile too. And the total C drive size is 25gb. I don't know what actually runs on the C drive that would even be using the space to make it run down to C.

Thank you!
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Hamid Reza Molahadi
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Physical or Virtual platform?
I am guessing that its a physical server then ? I would get someone to plug a monitor into it and tell you whats on the screen as a first step, I have had to do the same with servers before and it might be something as simple as a process hanging preventing it shutting down. Moving the Exchange databases was a good idea, usually you would separate the db from the tl and OS as part of the build though, however as soon as you get the box booted it will buy you some time before you implement a more stable and future proof solution.
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According to Onsite non-tech help, it is giving an E2022 post-fail error on the bezel LCD. The server is a Dell PowerEdge 1950.
On the monitor, it looks like the first letter of each column has been cut off.
So it says (starting from the top)
Resting memory, please wait
Keyboard failure
2 1.06 ghz quad core processor
10.66mhz : 2x4mb
System memory size: 2.0 gb
Remote access system 1.26
Baseboard management controller revision 2.37
Primary backplane firmware revision 1.05
CLE TRAINING ERROR- Internal Storage Slot
SYSTEM HALTED! (in blue box with white letters)  

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okay, we are out of warranty on the part. But, we are working with dell to try and see if a pci card is bad. any thoughts on if this is software related how we can fix it?
I have a symantec backup system restore that was last run fully for drive C on 18 September 11, and incrementally on 24/9/11 at 2am. Any idea if we could use these to restore the system to the 24th since it was at least partially working then?
They had us try to remove and reseat the raid card and riser, but it still is giving us the problem. What can we try to do next?
The problem is it will not boot, the error exists outside of the operating system so this is bound to be hardware related. I had a similar issue before with an out of warranty box and Dell let us by a new warranty for 1 year and repaired that same issue under it. I have a few 1950 POwer Edges which I still have extended warranties on so you should be ok.
it appears to be the perc card. I have a perc 6/i in an identical unit, but this unit has a perc 5/i card. The perc 6/i was a replacement for a failed perc 5/i card in that other unit, so shouldn't i be able to take down the other (non-critical unit with 6/i) and put the 6/i in this unit and have it work? Johann, thank you so much for your help so far, I really appreciate it.
Normally when you change a raid controller or scsi controller that the server is booting off you would install the device driver first, if not it will not be able to see the disks. Saying that I have never tried between 5 and 6/i , can dell sell you the part?
Yes, the dell rep from before had recommended it. He said that the 6/i was a better card since it had integrated memory, etc. and was cheaper than the 5/i.
Sounds like a good solution then.
Okay, so it booted to windows. Can login remotely now. However, it does not appear to allow me to access OWA or outlook at all. Do you have any ideas what might be going wrong as to why I can access the desktop but it won't let me access my inbox?
Make sure all the services have started, then you news to to to exchange system manager and make sure the stores are mounted. It's possible that the db may be in a dirty shutdown state however exchange reserves disk spaces to allow for this and will dismount the store if your about to run out of disk space.
Sorry auto correct on iPhone :)
It appears that IIS is not working either, because when I type in any version of the OWA site, it says a "Timed Out Connection" error message as well. Do you know what might be causing these issues?
Johan,
I checked and it appears that all of the services are running correctly, except for the following:
- MS Exchange (EX) Event
- MS EX IMAP4
- MS EX MTA Stacks
-MS EX Pop3
- MS EX Site replication service

Could there be a problem such as a corrupt file with the IIS Admin service?
Johan,
I just was going through the event logs and found that It had cleared its DNS settings and IP. When I checked, the IP address had been assigned by DHCP, so once I put it back to the correct Static IP address, now all the emails are showing up (little by little), and the OWA/LDAP/Exchange/Outlook over TCPIP/ Outlook Citrix/ etc. are all working. Thank you for your help. Which answer should I award you the points to?
I'm pleased you are sorted, award points to the answer that helped you the most.