Howdy,

 I came across this interesting error and well, couldn't find a solution online ANYWHERE! This is running on a Windows 2003 SP1 server, ISA 2004 SP1. Three services won't start: Microsoft ISA Server Job Scheduler; Microsoft ISA Server Control; Microsoft Firewall. When trying to start the ISA Server Control the MMC errors:

The Microsoft ISA Server Control service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they have no work to do, for example, the Performance Logs and Alerts service.

Me not being satisfied with that, checked out the Application Log and discovered:

Event ID: 11004
Source: Microsoft ISA Server Control

Microsoft ISA Server Control failed to start. The failure occurred during Security Watchdog notification processing because the system call Apply failed. Use the source location 122.64.4.0.2165.594 to report the failure. The error description is: The device is not ready.

And this error was difficult to find online. Since I desperately needed this to work, I backed up my ISA configuration, then uninstalled and reinstalled ISA... and then reimported the config and it still works! I don't know what causes this kind of error or if there is an easier way to fix it, but a reinstall works.

If you happen to know how to fix this, please post a comment and share your findings!