disconnected domain controller

[Jason]

In sites and services I have a server that is in a paritcular site, but
nolonger running(1.5yr).

My question is: I found the server that was removed, would it be safe to
bring up the domain controller in the domain after a year of not being on,
and run a dcpromo
and then delete it?

 

[Guest]

As long as you didn't remove the computer account you should be ok. Just
make sure there won't be any IP address or NetBIOS name conflicts.

 

[Jeremy Hallock]

First, you do not want to bring a server online that has been out of
replication for more than 60 days, which is the tombstone lifetime for
deleted objects. That has potential to cause some irritating issues.
Here are some articles that talk about that...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;317097
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;870695


If your goal is to remove the server from AD all together, then you do
not need to bring the server back online just to do the dcpromo to
remove it. You can follow the steps in the following article to do a
metadata cleanup of the object from Active Directory and this will
remove all references to that Domain Controller.

How to remove data in Active Directory after an unsuccessful domain
controller demotion
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;216498