AD W2k - promote BDC to PDC

[weare]

Last night a power spike killed the raid array on the W2k AD "PDC" which held the global catalog. This is a full AD domain.
The BDC has taken on authentication and dns and I've remapped user drives etc so there was no data loss (other than the o/s on the pdc) or disruption to users.
I now have only a bdc & would like to promote it to the pdc role and bring in a new bdc.
DCPromo only offers to let me remove AD from the bdc - how do I promote it to PDC.

Thanks in advance

 

[EdwinSKH]

Haven't tried it myself, but you need to seize FSMO roles using NTDSutil.exe. Refer to the following article for details.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;255504

 

[R121]

EdwinSKH is right in 2000 domains you have to seize roles make SURE you know what your doing there have been some side effects of seizeing roles.

 

[Davetoo]

And also, for clarification, there are no PDC's and BDC's in a W2K domain, they are all DC's with various roles depending upon the FSMO. So if you DCPROMO a W2K server, it's a DC (if it was a member server before), and you use DCPROMO to make a DC a member server.

 

[weare]

Thanks for this advice.

NTDSutil.exe doesn't work in this situation. The PDC no longer physically exists, it only exists in DNS, so NTDSutil.exe cannot find the role to seize it. Another DC cannot be added to the domain either for the same reason - DCPromo says it cannot contact a PDC for that domain.

I built a new server as a PDC of a new domain on the same subnet and setup trust relationships between the two domains. For some reason my BDC then elevated itself to PDC of its own domain, and I was then able to bring in a member server to that domain, elevate it to a DC and seize the PDC role using NTDSutil.exe.

I'm still not convinced that all is sweet, but ADCheck reports the roles are ok on each DC.