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That's what I though on Monday morning, when I discovered that my PDC had expired messily at the weekend.
Initially it seemed that it would be easy to revive - bung new boot disk in, reinstall basic NT4S (yes, I know), and the drag everything off backup. Turns out of course, that the mobo is also somewhat flaky. Now, this being NT4 I needed to find an identical mobo. So, I nick one out of a lab machine - does this cure my re-install woes, good guess, of course it didn't.
Eventually gave up the uneven struggle, and resurrected a slightly dodgy machine, which is at least server class hardware. It was at this point that I also discovered, that my BDC was not actually a BDC, but a member server. Oh heck, there goes the domain. Ah, well, with a clean slate I'm not forced to stay with NT4S so, I'm now rebuilding with W2KS. Now I should have a nice new shiny domain by lunchtime tomorrow, the longest part of this is going to be migrating the existing PC's to the new domain, and dealing with the usual user based chaos. As you might expect the alleged BDC will become a BDC this time.
You may wonder why I'm not using W2K3S? it's actually quite smiple, I don't have a copy, but I do have all the necessary licenses for W2KS. There are two new servers on order, which will be coming with W2k3S, and all the necessary license upgrades. Hopefully at least one of these will be in place before I bugger off to Whitby.
So, what have I relearnt from this fiasco?
Oh, and just to add to the fun, a marketeers laptop expired today, whilst he was out of the country. He gets back round about now, and flies out to the Far-East tomorrow morning. So guess what I have spent my evening doing? Sorting out my lapdog so he can take that with him. Only one major problem with this - he'll be picking it from me at 7am. The plus is, of course, if it gets knackered on its world tour, I'll get a new one off the company.
A.
Initially it seemed that it would be easy to revive - bung new boot disk in, reinstall basic NT4S (yes, I know), and the drag everything off backup. Turns out of course, that the mobo is also somewhat flaky. Now, this being NT4 I needed to find an identical mobo. So, I nick one out of a lab machine - does this cure my re-install woes, good guess, of course it didn't.
Eventually gave up the uneven struggle, and resurrected a slightly dodgy machine, which is at least server class hardware. It was at this point that I also discovered, that my BDC was not actually a BDC, but a member server. Oh heck, there goes the domain. Ah, well, with a clean slate I'm not forced to stay with NT4S so, I'm now rebuilding with W2KS. Now I should have a nice new shiny domain by lunchtime tomorrow, the longest part of this is going to be migrating the existing PC's to the new domain, and dealing with the usual user based chaos. As you might expect the alleged BDC will become a BDC this time.
You may wonder why I'm not using W2K3S? it's actually quite smiple, I don't have a copy, but I do have all the necessary licenses for W2KS. There are two new servers on order, which will be coming with W2k3S, and all the necessary license upgrades. Hopefully at least one of these will be in place before I bugger off to Whitby.
So, what have I relearnt from this fiasco?
- Don't trust the sysadmin who you are replacing. Especially when you have found a number of interesting bodges in the systems. Check everything as far as it is possible, this is far more important than most other jobs.
- Don't rely on ancient equipment for critical jobs. No matter how strapped for cash the business is.
- Insist on redundant aircon in machine rooms. I suspect that the failure was hastened by the aircon failure the previous weekend. 40+C is not good for systems that don't have thermal protection.
Oh, and just to add to the fun, a marketeers laptop expired today, whilst he was out of the country. He gets back round about now, and flies out to the Far-East tomorrow morning. So guess what I have spent my evening doing? Sorting out my lapdog so he can take that with him. Only one major problem with this - he'll be picking it from me at 7am. The plus is, of course, if it gets knackered on its world tour, I'll get a new one off the company.
A.
