Unable to start Information Store

[lost4life]

I have just installed a second Exchange server to our organization. I want to migrate users to the new server and make the original a front-end server. After installing exchange, I cannot get the information store and the MTA stacks to start on the new server. I did not run forest prep and domain prep before installing since we already have an 2k3 exchange server in our environment (maybe the problem?). Event logs show the following:

Event ID: 9098 - The MAD Monitoring thread was unable to read its configuration from the DS, error '0xc004038a'.
Event ID: 5000 - Unable to initialize the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service. - Error 0xc0040391
Event ID: 9538 - Error 0xc0040391 calling StrInitialize in REAPI.DLL

I tried to reinstalled exchange over the existing installation with same results. When I telnet on port 25 and type EHLO I get this: 454 Temporary EXPS-Authentication failure. Before I remove Exchange and reload the OS, I was hoping that someone might have some advise on fixing the issue.

 

[Zelandakh]

Is that server a domain member?
Do you have an available domain controller?
Do you have an available global catalog server?
Are the Exchange services set as an exchange admin or local?

 

[lost4life]

The server is a member of the domain and the domain controller and global catalog are available. Both the information store and mta stacks are sutup to run as local system

 

[lost4life]

Part of the problem is that there isn't anything in the MDBDATA folder - it is completly blank. Perhaps I should uninstall Exchange and format the drives and start over. It might be the quickest solution.

 

[58sniper]

Yikes.

If there is nothing in the mdbdata folder, and you attempt to mount a mailbox store that SHOULD be in the mdbdata folder, you should get the warning box popup saying something about it will create a new, empty database (called a dialtone database) if you continue. If you do continue, it should create the database and mount it.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP