Sep 20 2010
Goodbye Windows 2000 Server
I have been happily using Windows 2000 in my home network for many years. My setup was fairly simple – I had a Windows 2000 Server that acted as a domain controller with roaming profiles enabled, and as a file and printer server for approximately six computers and six mobile devices. It also doubled up as a workstation.
All of this worked very well in my home network, although it was starting to show its age and limitations. However, about two weeks ago the server refused to boot properly after it crashed :( Instead of getting the normal login screen, I got the following error message:
Security Accounts Manager initialization failed because of the following error: Directory Service cannot start. Error Status: 0xc00002e1. Please click OK to shutdown this system and reboot into Directory Services Restore Mode, check the event log for more detailed information.
It appears that the reason for this is that my Active Directory became corrupted due to the crash (see Directory Services cannot start” error message when you start your Windows-based or SBS-based domain controller and Err Msg: Security Accounts Manager Initialization Failed Because of the Following Error: Directory Service Cannot Start).
Unfortunately, I do not have a backup of my Active Directory. More importantly, I do have a complete backup of all my data :)
Rather than rebuilding everything in the same way I have decided to use the opportunity to do some upgrading :)
So now I am going to install Ubuntu Desktop on my server. I am then going to install VirtualBox. This will be my host server.
Next I will create two virtual machines to run on my host server:
- The first virtual machine will be Ubuntu Server, and it will act as my domain controller (using Samba).
- The second virtual machine will also be Ubuntu Server, and it will act as my file server (again using Samba).
My main motivation in doing this is that it will make backup trivial (just copy the entire virtual machine), and it removes my dependence on hardware!
Now all I need to do is start implementing this great plan :)