garrya100

You may have a Sever Raid install that is not set up for auto rebuild. Check the RAID BIOS to ensure a auto rebuild is available. Another method may be to set it as a hotspare and then try to force a rebuild

If that's the case your looking for a 'rebuild array' function. It's been a while since I've used Server Raid, but I think it could be under the 'Actions' menu. You may also need to upgrade the controller BIOS if it doesn't correctly recognize the drive. I've seen some that were a little fussy till the BIOS was upgraded. Be carefull though, I've also had some spit the dummy and delete the array when the BIOS was upgraded!!

Is it part of the RAID array, or do you need to configure it as a hot spare? If it's not actually part of the array, syncronising won't acheive anything. If its supposed to be a hot spare, set to that will bring the array out of "critical"

Don't forget to think a little 'outside the box'. Our College has a policy of continuing professional development (pushed by me!!). I allready have CCNA, A+, DCSE, ADCT, and some MS quals, so to be different I'm doing business management. It's been a little different and I've had to think a bit more. IT comes to me easy, this is more of a challenge! Next year I want VCP or CCNA Voice, they sound like fun!!

If you check the system requirements you'll find that it only runs on Exchange 2003, and is not compatible with Exchange 2007. Guess now we know why I does run quite nicely on Ex2003, I've had it running for a number of years with no problems, and staff now expect it to work. One reason I 'm not looking forward to Ex 2007 just yet!

You'll only see an increase in performance using manual settings if you have two devices that cannot negotiate full speed sucessfully. It doesn't happen as much now, but I still come across some NIC's that can't seem to get it 'right' and you end up having 10Mbs/half duplex instead of 100Mbs/full duplex. The official Cisco line is that auto is the fail safe mode, and you 'auto-not' leave your switchports auto, but configure them as you need to suit your network. My method is to set the switchports to 100/full and let the NIC's be auto, and all works fine. It also means you don't have to set the speed/duplex at the NIC's, if you can at all. That said, mostly switches are set to auto these days and work sucessfully.

I think the anti-Sophos guys/gals must have some configuration problems. We moved from Symantec Endpoint to Sophos this year due to cost. We could get a site licence for Sophos to cover all 190 PC's in the school (Mac's, Staff laptops, etc) for the same cost of 80 PC's from the big yellow monster. Our site licence also allows us to install it on staff members home PC's and student personal laptops. It does take a little setting up but all the documentation is on the website. We have it set up to automatically install on new PC's and basic application control. Next year we will also move to NAC. The biggest issue we had was evicting Symantec. Even using their un-installer leaves the registry full of junk and PC's complaining about being unable to start services. Sophos also found things that Symantec didn't. After all the little issues were sorted it been a good move

Try making sure all the network shares are disconnected. You can't rename a PC on a domain or join a domain if network shares/mapped drives are active on a PC

I have Vsphere running on a virtual server, it runs fine. The only thing you need to be aware of is that you need to be connected to a SAN to make full use of this technique, otherwise you can never apply updates to the host that has your VS on it. This is because in order to update a host you need to be in maintence mode, which means your VM are shutdown. When the VS shutsdown the updates stop. It also means you need at least two ESX hosts. You need to Vmotion the VS of a host to enable it to update it. That said the benefits are of course you can incorporate your VS into a HA or DRS strategy so it's always available and also save buying another box