I am trying to install Exchange 2010, and while running the setup /preparead command i get the following message. Note: I am using the Domain Admin account which is a member of schema admins and enterprise admins groups. Organization Checks ......................... FAILED Setup is going to prepare the organization for Exchange 2010 by using 'Setup /P repareAD'. No Exchange 2007 server roles have been detected in this topology. Af ter this operation, you will not be able to install any Exchange 2007 server rol es. Setup encountered a problem while validating the state of Active Directory: Active Directory operation failed on . The supplied credential for 'CFN\Adminis trator' on Bind operation is invalid. Error Code: 0x31. The Exchange Server setup operation did not complete. Visit http://support.micro soft.com and enter the Error ID to find more information. Exchange Server setup encountered an error. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks Brandon

Do you run this command on a computer in the same domain and in the same Active Directory site as the schema master? Prepare Active Directory and Domains http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224.aspx MCTS: Messaging | MCSE: S+M | Small Business Specialist

Hi Brandon, it will be resolved by clearing out cached credentials from the Stored User Names & Passwords area of User accounts in the Control Panel. When you will remove that and rebooted, all appeared to be fine, and has remained so. Regards. Shafaquat Ali. M.C.I.T.P Exchange 2007 M.C.I.T.P Windows Server 2008 M.C.T.S OCS Server 2007 R2

Yes I am running this on the "soon to be" windows 2008 R2 Exchange server, located in the same domain and same site as the schema master.

Now I get the following error messages upon trying to install: Organization Prerequisites Failed Error: Setup encountered a problem while validating the state of Active Directory: An Active Directory error 0x51 occurred when trying to check the suitability of server 'saturn.cfnation.com'. Error: 'Active directory response: The LDAP server is unavailable.' Warning: Setup is going to prepare the organization for Exchange 2010 by using 'Setup /PrepareAD'. No Exchange 2007 server roles have been detected in this topology. After this operation, you will not be able to install any Exchange 2007 server roles. Elapsed Time: 00:01:46 Languages Prerequisites Completed Elapsed Time: 00:00:15 Hub Transport Role Prerequisites Failed Error: Setup encountered a problem while validating the state of Active Directory: An Active Directory error 0x51 occurred when trying to check the suitability of server 'saturn.cfnation.com'. Error: 'Active directory response: The LDAP server is unavailable.' Warning: Setup cannot verify that the 'Host' (A) record for this computer exists within the DNS database on server 10.0.0.5. Elapsed Time: 00:00:17 Client Access Role Prerequisites Failed Error: Setup encountered a problem while validating the state of Active Directory: An Active Directory error 0x51 occurred when trying to check the suitability of server 'saturn.cfnation.com'. Error: 'Active directory response: The LDAP server is unavailable.' Warning: Setup cannot verify that the 'Host' (A) record for this computer exists within the DNS database on server 10.0.0.5. Elapsed Time: 00:00:19 Mailbox Role Prerequisites Failed Error: Setup encountered a problem while validating the state of Active Directory: An Active Directory error 0x51 occurred when trying to check the suitability of server 'saturn.cfnation.com'. Error: 'Active directory response: The LDAP server is unavailable.' Warning: If Microsoft Outlook 2003 is in use, you should replicate the free/busy folder on this server to every other free/busy server in the organization. This step should be performed once Setup completes. Warning: Setup cannot verify that the 'Host' (A) record for this computer exists within the DNS database on server 10.0.0.5. Elapsed Time: 00:00:15 Interesting note as the DNS server does have the A record for this server, and it still states it can't contact the server error 0x51 LDAP server unavailable. Any thoughts? Brandon

You did not mention the OS details and H/W configuration