Ghosted hard drive will not work

Problem: Can not start windows server 2003 with new hard drive due to Directory Service cannot start error message after I ghosted the original hard drive.

Background: I made the partition too small (call me stupid) and was running out of space on the hard drive so after researching many methods on increasing the partition I decided that this was the easiest way of accomplishing this.

Equipment: The server is a Dell dimension 2400. The original HD is 80 Gigs. The ghosted HD is 120 Gigs.

Specific error: When I use the ghosted HD to boot up an error message reads 'Security Accounts Manager initialization failed because of the following error: Directory Service cannot start. Error status:0xc00002e1'

Troubleshooting already done:

1. I booted in Directory Services Restore Mode and ran the command 'ntdsutil files info' in a cmd prompt.
2. The database, Backup dir, Working dir, and the Log dir are there but the temp.edb, res2.log, resl.log, edb00001.log and edb.log are not there.
3. I tried to use the backup copy to fix the problem but whenever I try to do that the server just hangs and does nothing. (I am using the backup program that came with server 2003)

Any help would be appreciated. I'm pretty new at this so I may not have used the proper terminology so I hope you understand.

Thank you in advance.

 

Hi gunther and welcome.

The specific fix is a little beyond me but if you still have the original drive with contents intact, it might be worth investing in a utility that will allow you to resize partitions on a working system and simply make yourself more room in the system partition.

Partition Magic has been around forever and is very reliable.

 

One more thing...

Thank you for your welcome. I hope to get and share useful information with everyone.

 

Partition Magic 7.0 Professional does support servers including 2003 as does the server version.

 

I could only find Partition Magi 8.0

I couldn'd find any information that says Partition Magic 8.0 supports servers on the symantec website and powerquest no longer has their support page up (it redirects to symantec).

Another confusing though, you typed Partition Magic but the link sends me to Paragon's Partition Manager. Did you mean Partition Manager?

Thanks again for your help on this.

 

You have to be careful when playing with harddrives in servers. If you are running an AD you may run into further problems. The server is usually very sticky about System ID's (SID's) if you change the harddrive the SID may change.

Just giving you a heads up