Parent DC Crashed...

[Guest]

I had a DC crash that was the parent of several Children. I had no
backups..(won't happen again) and I had to basically rebuild the parent
domain, per a conversation with a Microsoft specialist.

So, now I have this brand new parent domain, who knows nothing about his
children, and I have used the ADMT tool to move computer accounts and user
accounts from the child to the parent. (We are wanting to get rid of the
children anyway). So, in the end we want one domain with several "BDC's." I
am not able to demote the child, nor use ntdsutils to remove the orphaned
parent...

So far, all that I can see that I can do is re-load 2000 on the child.
Any other suggestions?

 

[Herb Martin]

I had a DC crash that was the parent of several Children. I had no
backups..(won't happen again) and I had to basically rebuild the parent
domain, per a conversation with a Microsoft specialist.

Well, you were basically hosed, since you really
built a REPLACEMENT for the parent domain,
not the original domain or even the original forest.

So, now I have this brand new parent domain, who knows nothing about his
children, and I have used the ADMT tool to move computer accounts and user
accounts from the child to the parent. (We are wanting to get rid of the
children anyway).

Then it isn't so bad as it could have been,

So, in the end we want one domain with several "BDC's." I
am not able to demote the child, nor use ntdsutils to remove the orphaned
parent...

There are no "BDCs" running Win2000+.

What you want is a bunch of DCs. All the DCs
are masters of the domain.

So far, all that I can see that I can do is re-load 2000 on the child.

?? Huh? I thought you got rid of the (old) child domains,
after moving the users into the new parent (sole) domain.

You cannot remove the "old" parent using the children
since they know it is required for them to continue to exist.

Children much be removed before a parent can be removed.

Any other suggestions?

If you are moving all the users and computer into the
new (parent) domain then that is about the best you
can do.

Then DCPromo away all the old DCs, and you can move
them too, as new servers (or later DCs) in the new domain.

 

[Paul du Toit]

Hi

If I understand you correct you want to Demote you Child servers. Because
you have a new Parent domain you should be able to just "Format the
machines"
alternatively you can use the command (dcpromo /forceremoval) on your child
servers, this will demote your child server with checking for your Parent
Server.

 

[Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP]]

SOS!

I am not really sure that I follow what you have done or what you are trying
to do!

It seems like you had a parent domain ( yourdomain.com ) as well as some
children domain ( child01.yourdomain.com and child02.yourdomain.com and
child02.yourdomain.com, for example ).

Furthermore, it seems as there was only one Domain Controller in
yourdomain.com and that it crashed. You had no backups so everything is
pretty much gone as far as yourdomain.com is concerned.

So, you loaded WIN2000 Server on that same hardware ( assuming after some
hardware failure and that failure was replaced / repaired / whatever...or
maybe it was a software crash that you were not able to fix...no matter ).
You then ran dcpromo on it and created yourdomain.com again. Using the
default Domain Controller for a new domain, create a new domain tree and
finally create a new forest of domain trees.

Point 1: while you still have the same name domain/forest name this is
actually a completely new forest of domain trees. This is completely new
and separate from your current environment.

I am a bit surprised that you were able to use ADMT to migrate the user
account objects from the children domains to this new forest. Normally when
you loose the parent domain you have also lost the children domain(s).
Apparently I am missing something or forgetting something. Just how did you
do this? You would have had to make a trust somehow.......I must be having
a brain-fart right now! ;-)

Also, this new parent domain does not know anything of the children domains.
The children domains are not 'his children' as this new parent domain has
absolutely nothing to do with the children domains....as they exist right
now.

What was the purpose of the children domains?

Point 2: you can not join existing Domain Controllers from children domains
to another domain without first dcpromoing them.....which naturally kills
all of the user account objects and computer account objects....and then
dcpromoing them into the new forest.

However, this might be a bit difficult as the parent domain from which you
would need to remove them does not exist. Well......

--
Cary W. Shultz
Roanoke, VA 24014
Microsoft Active Directory MVP

http://www.activedirectory-win2000.com
http://www.grouppolicy-win2000.com