Restore Windows 2003 DNS from Active Directory NTDS.DIT

[emilne]

I have recently taken on the task of maintaining our servers, and we
have lost a number of our dns entries. I want to recover them, but I
worry that the backup I have may not be sufficient to restore this. All
I have to work with are two files (NTDS.DIT, and its log file)
recovered from a backup of the System State. How can I recover this,
keeping in mind that I don't want to do this on the active server.

If I can get this restored on a test server, I don't care if it will
actually work in the end. All I want is to be able to extract the data.

I have set up an isolated AD server that has been working without any
problems. I attempted to restore my live A.D. data over top of this
testing server. Here is what I tried (all on the test server)...
1. Restart windows
2. Boot up into Active Directory Restore Mode.
3. Browse to C:\WINDOWS\NTDS\
4. Replace the ntds.dit file found here with the backed up copy from my
live server.
5. Brows to C:\WINDOWS\System32\
6. Same as step 4.
7. Reboot into regular mode
Result...
I get a message before logging in saying something to the affect that
the DS could not start, and that I need to go back into restore mode to
fix it.

So obviously I cannot simply drop the Data file in its place and expect
it to work. It seems that there must be more files elsewhere that I
need.

Am I hoping against hope here? Please tell me that there is a way to
get this data out.

 

[Jorge de Almeida Pinto [MVP]]

restoring AD really does not work that way...

you could do a non-authoritative restore of AD and then authoritatively
restore those objects YOU want to introduce.

Backing Up Active Directory Components
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/27efdda8-2766-4d28-b1d0-daeef7ba5b3c1033.mspx
Performing a Nonauthoritative Restore of a Domain Controller
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/f3bfb611-dcbe-4365-8f1d-3321916aeb631033.mspx
Performing an Authoritative Restore of Active Directory Objects
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/690730c7-83ce-4475-b9b4-46f76c9c7c901033.mspx


--

Cheers,
(HOPEFULLY THIS INFORMATION HELPS YOU!)

# Jorge de Almeida Pinto # MVP Windows Server - Directory Services

BLOG (WEB-BASED)--> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/default.aspx
BLOG (RSS-FEEDS)--> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/rss.aspx

 

[Jorge de Almeida Pinto [MVP]]

and why not just recreate them???

are those record static or dynamic?

--

Cheers,
(HOPEFULLY THIS INFORMATION HELPS YOU!)

# Jorge de Almeida Pinto # MVP Windows Server - Directory Services

BLOG (WEB-BASED)--> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/default.aspx
BLOG (RSS-FEEDS)--> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/rss.aspx

 

[Mark Repuski]

Working with AD and DNS I am puzzled at records you may have last that would
take so much work to recover.

If you really want the DNS data why not restore an old system state on an
offline server. Boot the server and then check the DNS server.

If the volume off data is that big you could change the zone to Standard
Primary, flat file. Then you could copy the file off the test system and use
this as an information source.

Another option is to change the production DNS from ADI to flat file and
then swap put the data files on the production box for the test box data.

One very BIG note if you have many DC running ADI DNS zones. Changes to on
DNS server replicate very quickly in the local site.

If you choose to replace the DNS file with the archived data practice in a
lab environment. When you are ready to update production perform this during
non peak hours.

Prior to any changes in production always remember, take a backup.