Exchange 2000 Server System Attendant service fails to start automatic

[uncleroydee]

Has anyone experienced a problem where the virtual directories created by Exchange 2000, the "M" drives, fail to initialize? In my case it is because the System Attendant fails to start, which results in the MTA Stacks and Information Store services also failing. The latter services are dependant on the System Attendant service. If I manually start the three services then the "M" drives appear.

In the event viewer, there are error messages for the Information Store and MTA Stacks startup failures but not for the System Attendant.

The System Attendant is dependant on the following services, which all start:
Event Log
NT LM Security Support Provider
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
Server
Workstation

I can only guess that one of the services, on which the System Attendant depends, starts but does not start quickly enough to allow the System Attendant to proceed.

My Exchange 2000 Server has SP2 installed and is running on Win 2K SP2.

Thanks, Roy

 

[tom11011]

Those are my thoughts as well. I would have a look at DNS for starters. Does it take a long time to login on the server after reboot?

 

[Xybertron]

Set IIS Admin to rely on Netlogon. Err I think that was the workaround. Ah I forget but it is something like that so that services start in a specific order on all-in-one boxes. Dan
Microsoft Exchange Support @ Microsoft

 

[forcesho]

I had this problem once in a test environment.. basically what I did was put up 2 dc and shut the primary dc off which also host the ad dns. Even though exchange has both dc + dns listed, it still try primary dc + dns.

BTW Can you start the service manually ? if so, it was just trying to use the dc + dns of server that isn't up. Point the primary DNS to the working DC.. If you cant' start it manually , it something else.

 

[uncleroydee]

Questions,questions, questions...

1. How does one determine how long it takes DNS to login on reboot?

2. How does one set IIS to rely on NETLOGON?

3. forcesho, are you advocating two separate machines in your suggestion? If so, I'm out of luck as we are delivering a system to a client and it will be a standalone WIN2K system configured as a PDC with AD running DNS and Exchange 2000.

BTW, I ran across some articles in Technet that maake a link to Proxy Server, but I don't have Proxy Server running in this situation.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[uncleroydee]

Thanks for everybody's help. Turns out it was a DNS configuration issue. Once I configured DNS correctly everything worked well.

Roy

 

[hurrikane]

I had this problem recently...this is the resolution which took care of it for me.

Q312859