Failing Domain Controller

[John B. Dykes]

So we got bitten... or are in the process of it.

We are migrating from an enterprise-wide hodge podge of NT Domains to an AD
Forest (Root Domain at the top, one child domain for each geographical
location). The plan was to do the migration with single Windows 2000 domain
controllers and once the old NT domains were put to bed, we'd reuse those
machines as backup domain controllers.

Unfortunately, one of our single domain controllers is beginning to die -
disk errors. We can't even add a new server to the domain to run a DC
Promo...

Any thoughts on getting a new DC before this one dies?

Thanks...

jbd
Denver.

 

[Gerry Voras]

1st of all, you won't need BDC's in an AD environment.

2nd, Why can't you add a new member server to the domain and then promote
it?

 

[John B. Dykes]

We don't need any backup Domain Controllers in a Windows 2000 AD
environment? I think that is what hurt us. Our one and only Domain
Controller is dying, and we don't have any other ones in the domain
(whatever you want to call them: Fallback, Failover, Redundant,
Fault-Tolerant. I just figured 'Backup' made the most sense).

We can't change passwords, add machines, access Users and Computers etc. I'm
guessing because our domain controller is dying and AD is getting all miffed
up.

 

[nevje]

do you have any backups of the system state, etc? ... i had a win2k ad
server go down corrupted, i ended up doing an in place upgrade to get a
working win2k which picked up most of the details during the install and
restoring the last good system state backup - it got things up and
running until the server was due to be replaced in the next several days
anyway

or you could do a clean install to some other disks with same details
and then restore system state to that ... you dont need full
functionality - just enough for basic ad operations

if you can get to that stage then bring up another machine, even a
desktop, whatever and join if will let you, if ok at that point seize
all the roles and get the other repaired/replaced asap

either way, good luck as when it hits the fan in the world of IT we are
the guys paid not to duck

 

[Gerry Voras]

YOu don't need a "BDC" -- that is only for PDC/BDC envirnoments. If you
have an AD environment, then you just need additional domain controllers --
all of them are equal to each other, none of this primary/backup/promotion
crap.