DC won't boot!

[ndart]

Hi again guys:

 

Here's one for you:

 

At a remote site our tech is having difficulties booting his main DC (only one, I know I know).

 

Thing is, it just won't boot up. It will go into safe mode ok but when normally booting it sticks at the point where it's loading explorer or in other words at the point of loading a blank desktop and a windows logo bottom left corner and an operational mouse pointer! Weird.

 

The other week, building work was done and brick dust contaminated the server room and we had it cleaned by a specialist but I am concerned the hardware may have been somehow damaged by this.

 

Where does one start? I don't think he has backed up AD but I may be wrong with that one. AD restore mode?

 

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[irsprint84]

If you can at least get to that point cant you put a temp 2nd server in and transfer dns, FMSO roles etc.. ?

[ndart]

You are right of course we could and that would have been our next step I think but the System Manager had a brain wave and suggested to pull the network cables and it worked!!!!

 

The switch is at fault. The switch seems faulty and of course because network services cannot talk to the network and Exchange DNS and AD couldn't run hence the non boot up. Resolved.

 

Thanks for that anyway. Have a good weekend.

[irsprint84]

No prob