The best laid plans…
I arrived at work early today in order to do minor maintenance on a pair of servers. The plan was that it would be done by the time people started showing up at 9:00.
It’s 11:40, and I just finished.
Server A: Install latest patches and reboot. Problem: Server decided to hang on login. Solution: reboot again. Simple, but annoying.
Server B: Shut down, install RAM, reboot. Problem 1: Server would not take any of the new memory that, according to the manual (downloaded as a PDF from Dell), it should have accepted. Problem 2: After re-installing the old RAM, Microsoft Exchange refused to start, offering only a 10-digit error code as explanation. Solution: Lots of Google and MS Knowledge Base searches suggesting database problems turned out to be completely irrelevant upon finding another set of logs that mentioned a nonexistent drive F. Opened up the computer, reattached the loose SCSI cable, and everything ran fine.