Migrating NT 4 PDC to Exisitng Win 2000 AD

[Guest]

I recently attempted an upgrade from Win NT to Win 2000 on a DELL PowerEdge
Server. This server was a PDC for our NT domain. What I intend doing is to
make this join an exisiting 2000 AD domain when upgraded.
The upgrade to Win 2000 worked fine but then on running DCPROMO, I expected
the option: "Addtional domain controller for an exisitng domain" as I had
done during testing. I could then have specified the domain I wanted this DC
to join. However, I was only given the options "Create a new domain tree" or
"Create a new child domain in an exisitng domain tree". These were not the
options I expected or wanted.
Would anyone be able to offer any advice on why I had these different options?
Are there any steps to take before the upgrade from NT to 2000 (e.g. DNS
changes...)?

Many thanks

 

[Dinesh Tashildar]

If it is first domain contoller (Windows 2000 enviroment) then it will got
give you option for "Addtional domain controller for an exisitng domain"

Is it your first domain contoller (Windows 2000 enviroment)?

-Dinesh

 

[Jimmy Andersson [MVP]]

Because it was a PDC. You can migrate your domain into the other one with
ADMT. Check www.microsoft.com for download details.

Regards,
/Jimmy

 

[Guest]

Thanks Dinesh.
There is an exisitng Win 2000 AD on the same LAN as the PDC. What I would
like to do is to merge the NT domain into the new AD domain. I was hoping I
could just upgrade it, and dcpromo it to join the exisiting AD domain. I was
hoping that this would migrate all the users. It seems that this won't work
though from a current PDC. I assume I need to use ADMT to migrate the users
from the PDC to the new domain first?
What would the next step be in moving this NT domain to the AD domain?
I then have other NT domains to migrate to this single AD domain. I assume I
can then follow the same process for each as I do for the first?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Jimmy,
Once I have migrated the users to the new AD domain, how do I change to
domain of the PDC to join the new AD domain?

Thanks

 

[Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP]]

Because it is WINNT 4.0 you would have to format, install WIN2000, join it
to the domain and, if desired, run dcpromo.

WINNT 4.0 is not like WIN2000 at all. Once you make a machine a BDC or the
PDC the only way to 'un-xDC' it is to format and install over again.

The only other option is to do an in place upgrade, but since this is the
PDC in a WINNT 4.0 environment this is not going to be available. The only
option is to upgrade to a WIN2000 Forest. You can not add this as an
additional Domain Controller in an existing Domain. It is the Primary
Domain Controller from a WINNT 4.0 Domain!!!!!

HTH,

Cary

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply Cary.
I don't really want to have to format the Hard drive of the PDC as it
containes many shares (with NTFS permissions for the many users and groups on
the domain).
I am running in a test environment at the moment so can try anything. When
the live upgrade goes ahead, this will be out-of-hours so the PDC can be
unavailable for several hours. I do have a BDC with the live PDC which would
assist any rollback if necessary.
How would I go about doing an inplace upgrade?
Wouldn't this mean that I would just have to upgrade to W2K, run dcpromo and
create a new domain?
Or, could I dcpromo, create a new child domain of my exisitng AD domain and
then migrate all the objects into the top level (so that I have a single flat
domain, rather than having a child domain)?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated?

Thanks

 

[Guest]

Were you able to get a final answer? We have a little bit different of a
situation. Whoever created our NT server years ago (before me) set it up as a
PDC. It was never used as a domain. Now I have a 2003 domain and I want to
make that computer a member server. Can I upgrade it to 2000 server, then run
dcpromo to demote it. Then add it to my domain???

Any tips would be great. This is a major production server and formatting is
not an option, it can be the last resort.

Beth

 

[Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP]]

Beth,

Maybe I am not understanding you correctly. If the WINNT 4.0 Server was set
up as a PDC then it was a Domain! It is the Primary Domain Controller in
that particular domain. If it is the PDC of a WINNT 4.0 Domain then you can
not join it to any other domain. If you were to upgrade it to WIN2000 then
this would simply create a WIN2000 Active Directory Domain instead of a
WINNT 4.0 Domain. This would still be completely separate from your WIN2003
environment.

However, you *might* be able to upgrade it to WIN2000 and then run dcpromo
it, making it a member server ( or, better said, a stand-alone server as you
would have to check the 'this is the last domain controller in the domain'
check box ). You could then join it to the WIN2003 AD environment. I have
never done this, though.

But, I think that we need to clarify whether or not your 'PDC' is actually a
WINNT 4.0 Primary Domain Controller. And if so, to what domain. Once you
were to upgrade and then dcpromo that domain would be gone forever!

HTH,

Cary

 

[Guest]

Sorry I was confusing about this. Our server is set up as a PDC. But it was
never used as it should have been. We did not use like a domain, no user
accounts were on it, and no one connected to it. So when I upgrade it to 2000
I want to correct this mistake and not have it be a domain controller. I
don't know why it was ever selected as a PDC. So that domain name can be gone
forever. Any less confusing? I might just push for the option of rebuilding
this server onto a new server.

 

[Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP]]

Beth,

Is or was this server ever connected to a network? And what does 'It was
never used as it should have been' mean exactly? If there are no user
accounts on it then it is/was really not doing much.

I might just wipe and load. But I would make sure that any user folders are
backed up somehow! That is, if there are any. It sounds to me like you
have a server that has WINNT 4.0 loaded on it as the PDC to some domain that
you do not use. I wonder if it is simply sitting in a closet waiting to be
used........

Cary

 

[Guest]

This server is our SQL server. It also run our calendars, intranet, FTP, it
does a lot. I don't know who decided to make it a PDC. The only user accounts
on the server are the administrators. It would take a while to rebuild this
server, but it is an option. We just thought we could save some time if I
upgrade it and can demote it. We don't need the accounts, I can recreate
them. But we can't lose our sql data.
Interesting huh?