Server not booting due to active directory corrupt

Problem:      Error shows as " security accounts manager initialization failed because of the following error: Directory Services cannot start. Error status 0xc00002e1. "

Causes:                    This problem occurs because one or more of the following conditions are true:

Ø  The NTFS file system permissions on the NTDS folder are too restrictive.

Ø  The drive letter of the volume that contains the Active Directory database has changed.

Ø  The Active Directory database (Ntds.dit) is corrupted.

Ø  The NTDS folder is compressed.

Scenario:        Customer is having Windows 2000 server and four clients of Windows XP. All these machines are connected in network via workgroup. While powering on – server not booting with the error denoted above.



Solution:     
To avoid reinstallation of operating system, we can demote as member server.

1.       Restart/ Start the server in Directory services restore mode

2.       Login with username and password given in time of Active directory installation.

3.       Start à Run à Regedit

4.         Change from old  "ProductType"="LanmanNT" to new "ProductType"="ServerNT" in the following path [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ProductOptions]

5.       Restart the Server

If need to reconfigure Active directory configuration

6.       delete the folder "NTDS".( c:\winnt\ntds )

7.       Reconfigure the domain &rejoin the clients again.