2003 Standard DC hang during preparing network connections

We have a 2-site domain with 2 dc´s in each site. Recently (for no apparent
reason) our main dc (first installed in the domain) rebooted by it self and
when it restarted in never gets past "preparing network connections".

We have tried starting in safe mode with and without network but it does not
help. There is no direct indication to what caused the reboot in the logs.

The server is still partially functioning, ping responds, mail server logon
requests via ldap are accepted (performance is low however) but no logon via
rdp.

Some of the event id´s found that might be relevant are, 1003 (only appears
with safe mode start so that should be ok), 1168. Also before the reboot some
schannel faults appear (event id 36872).

The indicated solution for this is starting dc restore mode.

Thanks

Alex,

Check to see if the setting for lmcompatibility is set higher than 3. Also,
while in safe mode, you might want to clear your security log file since it
being full can cause your server to reboot and lock itself until you clear
the crashonauditfail back to a setting of 1 or 0(turnoff). A setting of 2 in
the registry means that it has been activated. After clearing your logs and
resetting crashonauditfail, reboot and the DC should be able to logon. If
that fixes the issue, change the lmcompatibility level back to whatever it
was and see if the problem appears again. If it does, then it might be the
problem and the safe thing I know right now is to leave it to 3.

-Jay

"Alex" wrote:

> We have a 2-site domain with 2 dc´s in each site. Recently (for no apparent
> reason) our main dc (first installed in the domain) rebooted by it self and
> when it restarted in never gets past "preparing network connections".
>
> We have tried starting in safe mode with and without network but it does not
> help. There is no direct indication to what caused the reboot in the logs.
>
> The server is still partially functioning, ping responds, mail server logon
> requests via ldap are accepted (performance is low however) but no logon via
> rdp.
>
> Some of the event id´s found that might be relevant are, 1003 (only appears
> with safe mode start so that should be ok), 1168. Also before the reboot some
> schannel faults appear (event id 36872).
>
> The indicated solution for this is starting dc restore mode.
>
> Thanks