Okay this is going to be a bit winded, just to get as much information as I
can in this first post.
Without going into the details, I recently went thru a migration process to
get SBS2K installed on another PC using the NT4 BDC -> PDC and Win2K server
upgrade, and transferring the 5 FSMO roles. I'm going to have to do this
process again because I have to get SBS2K back on the original PC after
upgrading the hardware. I left the "temp" DC running (call it "DCTemp")
without demoting it after transferring the roles.
Here's some of the steps that may be relevant to my problem (to the best of
my recollection and notes from the install):
- After transferring the roles onto the SBS PC, I ran SBS setup without
Exchange (no ISA either), and then installed Exchange 5.5 with SP3 (it
failed the first time thru, then I did a manual removal of Exchange 5.5, and
then did Q309484 before setup of 5.5 again). I had a heck of a time trying
to get ISINTEG -patch to work, even going thru ESEUTIL on them several times
(on a 12 GB priv.edb no less), before it finally restored and Exchange 5.5
SP3 was up and running (the only other problem was the LDAP ports
conflicting, but that was easily resolved). I also had to do a directory
export from the Exchange 5.5, and reimport back into Exchange Administrator
on the SBS2K but I finally could log in from a workstation and send mail
(internally), use public folders working, etc.
- Next was the inplace upgrade to Exchange 2000, I got an error during the
installation process and it aborted near the end, saying it couldn't install
the Exchange MMC snap-in. I noticed that the databases "seemed" to have been
upgraded to Exchange 2000 (with the appropriate STM files for priv and pub).
I then tried to reinstall Exchange 2000 again, but this time it told me that
setup couldn't continue without removing the IMC from Exchange. I couldn't
get in Exchange Administrator, and the System Manager was missing so there
was no way to do this that I knew of.
- So, I went back to an image I made after transferring the FSMO roles, just
before the SBS setup. I got an error in the event logs about AD not having
the same information, but it seemed to take the "newer" information from
DCTemp fine.
- At this point (from the image), I ran the SBS setup (at first without
Exchange 2000 and ISA), then ran the Exchange 2000 setup with the
/disasterrecovery switch. I had already renamed the directory where it used
to be, and after setup, I moved the priv.edb, priv.stm, pub.edb and pub.stm
files along with the logs (essentially the whole mdbdata dir) back, and
mounted the stores. Okay, life is good at this point (or seems to be), as
Exchange 2000 is officially up and I could log in from a workstation and use
the services.
- Next came the SPs, and I applied Win2K SP4 first, then Exchange SP3. Ouch!
I got TONS of problems after reboot (MSExchange Event IDs 5000, 1121 with
error code 0x80004005, MSExchangeMTA Event ID 125, MSExchangeSA Event IDs
9098 and 9175, etc etc.). I tried a few things from some KBs but nothing
seemed to work. The IS simply refused to start, and thus I couldn't mount
the stores.
- I then proceeded to reinstall Exchange 2000 from the SBS setup, and got
the error "Setup detected another version, service pack needs to be
reapplied" or something like that. I then clicked Yes to all the files that
needed to overwrite the newer ones installed by SP3 (what a pain this was, I
wish there was a "Yes to All" option instead of the Yes, No, No to All that
is available). Setup completed BUT it said there were some problems with
Active Directory (no details). I rebooted and (phew) Exchange was working
again.
- I went ahead and installed the TM C/S/M suite but noticed that ScanMail
wasn't working (couldn't load the databases when I went into the management
console). I'm going to attribute this to Exchange not being up to SP3, but
it may be related.
Okay, now that I've laid the groundwork, here are the problems I'm noticing:
- DCTemp and SBS AD seems to be out of sync. I noticed this when a user came
to me and said his account was locked out - AD Users & Computers on SBS
looked fine, but on DCTemp the account was locked out. Both PCs have been
running long enough for things to propagate and there are a few other
inconsistencies that make me believe the replication is fubared.
- I used to have an "Everyone" group in Exchange 5.5, but that didn't seem
to carry over. When I try to recreate this, I get a "user already exists",
but I can't find it anywhere in AD (even with the find feature).
- I also can't create any NEW users on AD on the SBS with either the Add
Users Wizard or from AD. I have to go create the new user in DCTemp (it seem
to replicate okay to SBS, but I can't create mailboxes in AD from DCTemp).
- Using the Migrate Users Wizard, I tried to give the user a mailbox - it
seems to work but in System Manager, the mailbox simply isn't there. AD
lists the user as having an email address, but I'm not sure where the mail
goes.
So.. What steps should I take at this point? Are there general
troubleshooting utilities that I can run to check AD and Exchange? I'm not
sure if NTDSUTIL is useful at this point because things "seem" to work and
the database doesnt seem corrupted. Or should I try a reinstall from SBS
setup again?
I'm going to do another setup on the old SBS 4.5 PC, after doing some
hardware upgrade. If I just leave the current SBS running as is, and do
another FSMO roles tranfer, and do the SBS setup on the final hardware, with
an Exchange 2000 database forklift, should life be fine? Or should I really
look into fixing the above problems first?
Just a bit Frustrated.. (especially after the weekend copying over the
Exchange databases, and defraging, checking integrity, defraging, recopying,
defraging, etc. which took 15+ hours).
Any insights would be appreciated.