?re-promoting a demoted DC that used to hold FSMO role

H

Hii Sing Chung

I have come to the last resort of seizing FSMO role as the DC that hold all the FSMO roles can no longer be properly restored. I will force demote the problematic DC and clean the metadata.

My questions:
1. Is it OK to promote the demoted DC again after its FSMO roles are all being seized and demoted?
2. Do I need to remove all the DFS replicas hosted by this server before it is being demoted or promoted?
 
J

Jorge de Almeida Pinto

I'm trying to understand what you mean with "as the DC that hold all the FSMO roles can no longer be properly restored" and later on say "I will force demote the problematic DC and clean the metadata"

You are saying it cannot be restored... did it crash?
you can only (force) demote a DC if it is up and running. How come, if you just said you were not able to restore it?

AND why is it a problematic DC? Are you talking about AD on the server or the server itself. The answer about DFS depends on the answer for this question.

Could yu specify more info on what is wrong or went wrong, or what has been done, error IDs, etc.

--

Cheers,
(HOPEFULLY THIS INFORMATION HELPS YOU!)
# Jorge de Almeida Pinto #
BLOG --> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/default.aspx
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights!
* Always test before implementing!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have come to the last resort of seizing FSMO role as the DC that hold all the FSMO roles can no longer be properly restored. I will force demote the problematic DC and clean the metadata.

My questions:
1. Is it OK to promote the demoted DC again after its FSMO roles are all being seized and demoted?
2. Do I need to remove all the DFS replicas hosted by this server before it is being demoted or promoted?
 
H

Hii Sing Chung

Oh, follow my earlier posts, you can see the problems. After restoring, the DC is not functioning properly - it cannot replicate to and from any other DCs online. Earlier I said that after 3 repeated power failure (in a intervals of 2 hours yesterday) the DC started up with the directory database corrupted, directory service cannot start. The most I could do was to to restore from the most recent ghost backup image. As you knew already, such restore won't restore it to the correct AD state. I used ntdsutil to seize FSMO roles to the Windows 2003 DC which I promoted last week. Then, I used dcpromo /forceremoval to demote this server. Then, cleanup the metadata of any reference to this server. That was a day's work, I left the office to allow these change of roles to replicate among the living servers. As of now, I could not connect to my VPN server from home (error 718), and have intermittent problems connecting to the Exchange server using OWA ("Error. Access is denied" after 3 authentication dialogs). "Intermittent" because I was able to connect occassionally, without problem.
I'm trying to understand what you mean with "as the DC that hold all the FSMO roles can no longer be properly restored" and later on say "I will force demote the problematic DC and clean the metadata"

You are saying it cannot be restored... did it crash?
you can only (force) demote a DC if it is up and running. How come, if you just said you were not able to restore it?

AND why is it a problematic DC? Are you talking about AD on the server or the server itself. The answer about DFS depends on the answer for this question.

Could yu specify more info on what is wrong or went wrong, or what has been done, error IDs, etc.

--

Cheers,
(HOPEFULLY THIS INFORMATION HELPS YOU!)
# Jorge de Almeida Pinto #
BLOG --> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/default.aspx
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights!
* Always test before implementing!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have come to the last resort of seizing FSMO role as the DC that hold all the FSMO roles can no longer be properly restored. I will force demote the problematic DC and clean the metadata.

My questions:
1. Is it OK to promote the demoted DC again after its FSMO roles are all being seized and demoted?
2. Do I need to remove all the DFS replicas hosted by this server before it is being demoted or promoted?
 
J

Jorge de Almeida Pinto

I already replied to your post in another thread..

Please do not use multiple threads for the same problem/issue. It makes it more complicated.

So, see the answer in the other thread

--

Cheers,
(HOPEFULLY THIS INFORMATION HELPS YOU!)
# Jorge de Almeida Pinto #
BLOG --> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/default.aspx
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights!
* Always test before implementing!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, follow my earlier posts, you can see the problems. After restoring, the DC is not functioning properly - it cannot replicate to and from any other DCs online. Earlier I said that after 3 repeated power failure (in a intervals of 2 hours yesterday) the DC started up with the directory database corrupted, directory service cannot start. The most I could do was to to restore from the most recent ghost backup image. As you knew already, such restore won't restore it to the correct AD state. I used ntdsutil to seize FSMO roles to the Windows 2003 DC which I promoted last week. Then, I used dcpromo /forceremoval to demote this server. Then, cleanup the metadata of any reference to this server. That was a day's work, I left the office to allow these change of roles to replicate among the living servers. As of now, I could not connect to my VPN server from home (error 718), and have intermittent problems connecting to the Exchange server using OWA ("Error. Access is denied" after 3 authentication dialogs). "Intermittent" because I was able to connect occassionally, without problem.
I'm trying to understand what you mean with "as the DC that hold all the FSMO roles can no longer be properly restored" and later on say "I will force demote the problematic DC and clean the metadata"

You are saying it cannot be restored... did it crash?
you can only (force) demote a DC if it is up and running. How come, if you just said you were not able to restore it?

AND why is it a problematic DC? Are you talking about AD on the server or the server itself. The answer about DFS depends on the answer for this question.

Could yu specify more info on what is wrong or went wrong, or what has been done, error IDs, etc.

--

Cheers,
(HOPEFULLY THIS INFORMATION HELPS YOU!)
# Jorge de Almeida Pinto #
BLOG --> http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorge/default.aspx
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights!
* Always test before implementing!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have come to the last resort of seizing FSMO role as the DC that hold all the FSMO roles can no longer be properly restored. I will force demote the problematic DC and clean the metadata.

My questions:
1. Is it OK to promote the demoted DC again after its FSMO roles are all being seized and demoted?
2. Do I need to remove all the DFS replicas hosted by this server before it is being demoted or promoted?
 

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