After using DCPROMO /FORCEREMOVAL

[Tony Yuwono]

Hi all,

I have a problem here. I better tell the whole story :
1. I applied SP4 on my Win2K box which are the second Domain Controller
which has no DNS
2. I used DCPROMO /FORCEREMOVAL since it keep said it could not contact the
DNS
3. I used DCPROMO again to promote to other domain
4. I used NTDSUtil to do metadata cleanup
5. I checked using DCDiag and it failed with the FsmoCheck, other test type
was success
6. My client (WinNT 4.0 workstation) COULD join the domain BUT COULD NOT
login into the domain. The client said that there was no "my-domain" for
login.
7. I re-applied SP4 on my Win2K machine.
8. I planned to use DCPROMO again to demote the DC, but it failed and said
that my new domain did not exist or domain controller did not exist in the
domain. This happened in the "Enter the network credential" screen. I
checked the "this is the last domain controller in the domain". I have plan
to promote it again.

The question is : How should I do to enable my client to login into the new
domain ?

Please, if any of you have ideas or suggestions. It will be very
appreciated, since I don't expect to re-install the machine.

TIA,
Tony

 

[Simon Geary]

The /forceremoval switch should only be used as a last resort to rip AD off
a machine. If you get DNS errors when running dcpromo the best thing to do
would be to fix the DNS problems and then try again. Your first
troubleshooting step should be to check your DNS infrastructure and make
sure there are no ISP DNS addresses listed in any of your clients and
servers.

You say the FSMO check failed on dcdiag, have you corrected this error yet?
Check what servers are holding the FSMO roles and verify they are up and
running.

NT 4.0 uses WINS for DC locations, do you have a WINS server configured?