According to KB 234429 - How to Manually Restore the Metabase When No Proper Backup Exists or When the MMC Does Not Start the solution if you have no metabase backup is to uninstall the WindowsNT Option pack, uninstall ie, delete the metabase and then reinstall ie and NT4 option pack. As far as I was aware NT4 option pack is not installed on w2k!
The annoying thing is that the metabase is not backed up with w2k as it is always in use, and a manual backup of the database wasn't created (which we'd then have been able to restore).
In the meantime I can't start/remove/stop/install IIS5 AND the scheduler service won't start - which I'm hoping/thinking is related.
