Problems Reinstalling Exchange 2003

[ShackDaddy]

I had to do a manual removal of Exchange 2003 a couple of days ago, and I didn't do a great job. I removed the stuff from the registry and AD (using Sites and Services and ADSIEdit) before I actually disabled the mailboxes, so that screwed things up. But I used ADSIEdit to delete the server and the organization and deleted all the file-level stuff, and now I'm trying to run a reinstall.

The problem is that every time I start setup (after doing forestprep and domainprep), I tell it to do a "reinstall" and it asks me for the name of my Exchange 5.5 server. There never was an Exchange 5.5 server. There was only ever a single server.

No matter what I've tried so far, I always get asked for that E5.5 server name. Does anyone know what causes it to ask for it and how to get around it?

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[Zelandakh]

So you're essentially being told to install into an existing org rather than the option to create a new one?

 

[Zelandakh]

Have you followed everything in

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Remove-Exchange-server-entire-Exchange-organization.html

?