RobBaxter

Hahaha ... IT in Independent Schools @detjo ... it made sense in my head... on re-read ... not so much!!!

I find it really useful also to get networking at this event. I am up for "Trawling" around with some other people who work in the independent sector this year. Also, if your booking into a hotel to attend over the course of the event, let me know as I am yet to book myself in. P.s. i'm not a stalker honestly!! LOL ( realize how this post looks )

Damn good point! In which case ... most likely... it's GPO references to the server which is off, stalling out the logon as @sted said. Sorry if i gave bad advice

Firstly, @Michael is wise ... copy EVERYTHING off If you have any form of compitent Hardware Raid, you should just be able to pull 1 drive and replace it with another drive. (I will assume you are aware of the requirements for Raid Setups dealing with drives / specs and sizes). The raid controller at boot will detect the serial on the drive has changed and ask you what to do. (Rebuild Array) and wait what unholy time it takes and make god damn sure you have a UPS in place. If both drives are playing up, repeat the step with "the other drive". Also in my experience, when both drives or (all drives) appear to be having issues, it's almost allways a issue with the controller it's self. Again... if you have a decent Controller, it should dump this out to your syslog (check it). I had a new server once that when under any kind of load would crash. The problem was with the raid controller's Cache Memory resulting in errors which caused IO Wait the system could not recover from effectively "Hanging the OS". Good luck with your issue buddy, hope you get it sorted out

You need to migrate the PDC roll ... Currently, the PDC Service Roll acts as a kinda "broker". If the PDC is "down" you can take this role forcibly from any other Server with AD on it. So ... in the event of a PDC Master problem, you would take control of this roll to another DC. Your 4 main service rolls allways have a "master", most don't require the master to be present, but the PDC does, this is integral to password replication. Move your PDC to the 2012 server before you shutdown the old server and it should work. Once you test is over, move it back. (at least, that was what i learnt doing my MCITP EA Cert for 2008 r2, it is possible it changed with 2012, just a head up, i very well could be wrong) ... note to self ... refresh my certs

Another thing that Impero does in it "myriad" of helpful stuff. I know not what you asked for, however, maybe worth putting in a budget request for next year , trust me, you will love it. If you have not trialed it yet ... go grab one it's worth a look. Just make sure that one of their support dudes configures your AV for it. Alot of what impero does is well... pretty Virus Like. I had security service wars for a week because I didn't want to bother them . FYI, once they accept the AUP, you might want to think how you go about "Enforcing that AUP", again, impero does this.

Folder redirection and offline files don't play all that well with each other. IF you have folder redirection applied there is no real point in having either "User Profiles in AD Directly" or Offline Files enabled (in fact i have it off!). Folder Redirection for "schools" (i am a 130 seat independant with about 20 laptops in a trolly) is far better as "hot seating" and "Larger Profiles" is a sync nightmare unless you clean them out regularly. So ... my solution for "Children" is this. 1. Manditory Profiles (to keep things simple and consistant) 2. Folder Redirection of EVERYTHING but AppData (which is purged at log off) 3. GPO Folder Usage to put global shortcuts / favorites and other associated stuff back into the profile at logon 4. Offline Files completely off (no need for it) 5. Expensive, Reliable, Enterprise Wireless (to make the transit and wireless as good as a wired connection) so that Folder Redirect works properly. Then a little extra for "Class Logons for the youngsters" (i'm taking about year 1 / 2 and reception) Folder Redirection (off) all but My Documents. Meaning they use "Local" profiles, again which are purged by GPO, which stops any evil "Tempory Profile" crap happening. It's certainly not the BEST method or solution and it cuts a load of corners. HOWEVER, is consistently delivers the same "Experience" over and over no matter what the children do in a session. It allows us to basically let the children make huge horrid nasty mistakes which are repaired by a simple "log off and on". I am of the belief (certainly how i learnt and learn to this day) that you have to break things a few times to really learn how to use it. This is why i have my own old server, isolated, with a load of VMs on its own VLAN . I break things 5 or 6 times over before i find the solution that kicks butt . GL, hope it helps!!

I had something similar to this. If you are using folder redirect via group policy, there is no need to also have "profile paths defined" since the "Local Path" is being redirected anyway. I'm pretty sure it's a lame fix, but after stripping the profile path out of AD and letting Folder Redirection take care of it all, the problem went away. *** Just checked It was nothing to do with the above, it's "offline files" and Folder Redirection (both of which kinda don't like each other). If the folder is redirected offline files can't really "work" unless it makes a duplicate of the file (ignoring the redirection) in the same physical location. Windows Librarys then (show the files next door to each other). I would not be supprised at all if that creates some evil privledge screw up (are the files access is denied to) owned by a Network Service by any chance. I would do an audit of Offline Files / Folder Redirect and AD's Profile Pathing to make sure you don't have some double tasking there. Not sure this will help, but, here is hoping it leads you atleast in the right direction!

I know i sound like a advert bot, however, Impero is a GOD SEND for this kinda stuff. Just saying

https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/ is your friend. I spent 1 hour and this website until EVERYTHING ticked Green. I fixed like a boat load of errors. If it still doesn't work after that, i do have some other tricks up my sleeve. Let me know after you have made sure everything is setup right. Also FYI, School Agreement applicable. Goto 2012 ASAP, from a "external / internal" standpoint i think personally it's far better. Also, Since Office 365 is soon to be covered by said agreement (for the level up from free to education), I am giving serious thoughts to implementing a hybrid "On Site / Cloud" infer-structure for this. Anyways ... thats a little derail of you topic. Appologies! Let me know if you fixed after you run through this trouble shooter. If it's still broken I know some places to look.

BackupExec Here on a Dell 124T Tape Library working 3 Tape Sets (of 7 Tapes). + Shadow Copy + SCP Based Crons and Rsyncs. I did a MASSIVE data backup review this summer, i trialed MANY (to many to list) different solutions. IF you are using a tape library very few actually support them. Backup Exec is exspensive a resource hog and generally quite a pain to actuall "do things" with and "setup". However! That all being said, after all my testing and research, it's the only think I trust on my budget. IF however, i had "funds" i would probably buy some colo up the road from me a lease line and do it all in a private cloud. But last time i costed that stuff up it was going to cost £2000 a year for the most basic solution i tryed to design. Getting contractors in to do the same job seemed even more exspensive. I will be very interested in this thread also as i'm not convinced that my solution is the best . It does however work, so for the moment i'm happy!

For now if it requires a microsoft account its off. As for resources. I tend to keep a "golden image" and back it up before i start messing with it again and again. Getting everything just right by a "Trial and Error Method". Once i'm finished i will document it for you ( i need to document it for school anyway ) i will just publish a copy too. Thanks R

Yes, if you have a valid licence for the software ring them up. They are very nice people, i'm sure they will help with your problem, they are the experts. If you don't have a valid licence, my advice would be to buy one! Either way, @computer_expert is right, NetSupport offer full support for licence holders. (I don't use them) but I did trial it when we were evaluating all the different classroom management solutions out there.

I use Impero. While it may seem expensive (it really isn't) after you add all the benefits up. I would professionally recommend impero to any school, i think its awesome!

I have started on a 8.1 Enterprise image now. I downloaded 8 Enterprise out of my Licencing Service Center. I then upgraded that to 8.1 Enterprise Preview from Technet. I can now build all my stuff i need to get a workable Image ready for WDS. When 8.1 Enterprise (Release) comes out all i will have to do is install Windows 8 Enterprise / Upgrade KMS and will have all the manifests ready. I plan to roll out 8.1 site wide next term. Currently, we are sitting on Windows 7 SP1 waiting for Windows 8 SP1 (8.1) since I like to wait for the first Service Pack or "CU" before rolling out a MS product in a alive environment.