Problems restoring AD DC to dissimilar hardware

[Mike Leone]

I am trying to restore my DC to dissimilar hardware (a la disaster
recovery). I am following MS KB Q263532. I set up Win2K Server as a
stand-alone workgroup server; I boot into Directory Restore mode; I restore
everything EXCEPT the System State, from my last full backup (using
NTBackup). I reboot; have to go into Recovery Console and change boot.ini,
as the partition numbering had changed; reboot back into Directory Service
Restore and restore the System State; change the BurFlags registry key as
instructed in the KB article.

The article talks a lot about going thru an in-place repair or upgrade, if
Windows doesn't start. My Windows starts, so I don't do this. When I tried,
it said it couldn't find the Windows installation. That's when I manually
changed boot.ini, and it came right up.

I check the RPC registry key; it's fine. I reconfigure the NIC to have the
same IP as the old server, and point to itself as Preferred DNS, as per the
article. When I do so, it complains that this NIC has the same IP as the old
NIC (which is now hidden, because it is not physically in this computer).
Which is correct, of course - this is a brand new NIC, different model than
the old NIC. Dissimilar hardware, and all that.

So I say OK, and assign the new NIC as needed. Then the instructions say to
start the DNS utility, and check the properties. I can't; I get:

Snap-in failed to initialize
Name: - not available -
CSLID: {xxx.....}

And so I can't get into DNS. The old DC did not have DNS running on it; DNS
was running on a member server (which, of course, no longer exists, in a D/R
situation).I have tried re-installing DNS from the CD. It will install, but
I have no AD-integrated zones, and can't create one, because it says it says
it can't allocate relative identifiers.

None of this is mentioned in this article, and I haven't found any
directions that tells me explicity what to do. The old DC was not a FSMO
role-holder, so I know I'll need to seize the roles at some point, using
ntdsutil. I know I'll have to cleanup the metadata, since the other DCs are
not here (yet). But none of those articles have helped me with the DNS. And
AD without DNS is just ... dogfood. :-( And most of the Google searches just
refer back to the same article I started with.

Please. ANYONE have any experience or information on this? I've attempted
this 7 or 8 times now, using various bits and pieces of different KB
articles, since each seems to create new issues, and not solve the ones I
already have. Someone must have done this, and gotten it work. I have what
should be all the pieces (backup, new hardware, etc). But it's not going the
way it's supposed to.

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

If DNS was on another server, you absolutely must restore the DNS zones
before you even begin trying to restore Active Directory. The instructions
to point the server to itself for DNS for resolution is not valid if the
server wasn't and isn't going to running DNS.

Any particular reason why a member server was chosen for DNS? Using
AD-integrated DNS running on the DCs is quite possibly a better solution and
easier for disaster recovery.

As for the missing administrative tools, try running adminpak.msi, located
in your system32 directory.

Regards

Oli

 

[Mike Leone]

If DNS was on another server, you absolutely must restore the DNS zones
before you even begin trying to restore Active Directory. The instructions
to point the server to itself for DNS for resolution is not valid if the
server wasn't and isn't going to running DNS.

Any particular reason why a member server was chosen for DNS?

DNS was running on a member server, even back when we were running a NT
domain.

In production, primary DNS is on a member server; secondary DNS is on a DC.

Using
AD-integrated DNS running on the DCs is quite possibly a better solution and
easier for disaster recovery.

I have AD-integrated zones in my production DNS. I got the same errors, if I
tried restoring my DC that has the secondary DNS on it. Could not get into
the DNS; got the "Snap-in failed to initialize" error.

As for the missing administrative tools, try running adminpak.msi, located
in your system32 directory.

I am not missing any administrative tools; I have all the administrative
tools installed. I will try re-installing them.

Still not working, but a different error now.

"Could not contact the DNS server". The odd thing is, it has the old name of
the server (from when I first installed it, as a workgroup server, as per
the KB). This is the auto-generated name that sysprep gave this server (I
have a sysprepped image, that I used to install this server). What I did NOT
do, was rename it to match my DC name, BEFORE starting the restore.

The event viewer, however, has the exact same DNS error message it had,
before re-installing the admin tools - "could not open Active Directory".
THIS, I believe, is my biggest problem, and the problem that no one has been
able to tell me how to fix.

I guess I will start over from scratch (for like the 9th time , and
rename the server first.