Certification Authority Service starts and stops SBS 2008

certificate-authoritywindows-sbswindows-server-2008

We moved from a SBS 2003 Server to a SBS 2008 server relatively recently because the SBS 2003 was having major hardware issues. I followed the Migration guide to the letter and everything seemed to go smooth. Until after this last update. I noticed that AD Certificate service was not started… I started it and it stopped immediately. So I went to Certification Authority MMC and tried to start the service from there and got the following:

Error 0xxc8000147 (ESE: -327)

So went to the error log and here the associated log:

Log Name: Application Source:
Microsoft-Windows-CertificationAuthority

Date: 5/23/2011 7:29:42 AM

Event ID: 17

Task Category: None

Level: Error

Keywords: Classic

User: SYSTEM

Computer: *********.**********.lan

Description: Active Directory Certificate Services did not start:
Unable to initialize the database connection for
**********-*********-CA. Error 0xc8000147 (ESE: -327).

Event Xml:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-CertificationAuthority" 
        Guid="{6A71D062-9AFE-4F35-AD08-52134F85DFB9}" 
        EventSourceName="CertSvc" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49754">17</EventID> 
    <Version>0</Version> 
    <Level>2</Level> 
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode> 
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2011-05-23T14:29:42.000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>1513838</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />

    <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>******.**********.lan</Computer>
    <Security UserID="*****" />   
  </System>   
  <EventData Name="MSG_E_DB_INIT_FAILED">
    <Data Name="CACommonName">*********-*********-CA</Data>
    <Data Name="ErrorCode">Error 0xc8000147 (ESE: -327)</Data>   
  </EventData> 
</Event>

I have been searching for solutions to this issue and really haven't found anything related to the error code for CA services.

Best Answer

I recommend removing and reinstalling the Certificate Authority role. This is expressly supported by MS and they even provide an SBS2008 HOWTO here.