Procedure to come back from failed AD

[Guest]

Our secondary DC failed with a corrupt db. Used all the tools to recover but unsuccessful.There is not a recent backup of this 2nd DC. Have current backups of main DC. Tried to DCPROMO to demote the DC but had to come up in Safe Mode Active Directory Restore Mode and can't use DCPROMO. Would like to remove the secondary DC back to member server and then promote to a DC again and use the main DC to recover/replicate from. Is this possible? What are the proper steps. Do I remove the server in AD via mmc first? Do I have to reinstall Windows 2000? Thanks for the help our system is struggling without the 2nd DC.

 

[a-chadl [MSFT]]

| Our secondary DC failed with a corrupt db. Used all the tools to recover
but unsuccessful.There is not a recent backup of this 2nd DC. Have current
backups of main DC. Tried to DCPROMO to demote the DC but had to come up in
Safe Mode Active Directory Restore Mode and can't use DCPROMO. Would like
to remove the secondary DC back to member server and then promote to a DC
again and use the main DC to recover/replicate from. Is this possible? What
are the proper steps. Do I remove the server in AD via mmc first? Do I
have to reinstall Windows 2000? Thanks for the help our system is
struggling without the 2nd DC.
|


You should rebuild the 2nd domain controller and run DCPROMO on it to
promote it back as a domain controller. Howver, before doing this you will
need to execute a metadata cleanup on the 1st DC to remove the 2nd DC from
AD. Here is an article detailing how to do a metadata cleanup:


216498 HOW TO: Remove Data in Active Directory After an Unsuccessful Domain
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=216498





Chad A. Lacy
Windows 2000 Directory Services

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[Matjaz Ladava [MVP]]

You could try with dcpromo /forceremoval to remove AD form the server and
then use http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=216498 to cleanup metadata in
your ad. After that you can promote your server again to DC. The same
procedure goes if you reinstall your DC.
Also check if your DC is holding any FSMO roles. If it did, then you will
probably have to sieze them. Ses
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;255504

--

Regards

Matjaz Ladava, MCSA, MCSE, MCT, MVP
Microsoft MVP Windows Server - Active Directory
(e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)