adding a new dc

[patrichek]

Hi guys,
i'm in the process of replacing my w2k server with a new one. I currently have 2 servers, one PDC and 1 used as a bdc. I want to remove the pdc and install a completely new system. It's will have the same setup as the original but i don't want to restore the system state from old to new due to problems from a previous restore.
So, last night i took the old dc and the bdc offline and plugged in the new system. I noticed that it took a while longer for users to log on the domain and that no group policy was available?? Can someone shed some light on this subject for me? I tried connecting to a domain in AD but without luck.

by the way, i restarted the old PDC and BDCs and everything is back to normal now.
Thank you in advance!

 

[Celestil]

Let me see if I understand correctly you took your AD (mixed mode) enviroment down and installed a new server. When you installed your new W2K DC you either used one of the IP addresses of the old server or you gave it a new address. You then installed WINS/DNS when you ran DCPROMO. So you now have (for example a new server with WINS/DNS/AD with for my example has the address of your old PDC.

You changed DNS to Active-Directory Integrated and rebooted a client and using your Domain Admin account attempted to join to your new domain and this failed???

Is this a correct assesment? My assumption is you are reusing the DNS/WINS address of the old PDC so you do not have to change the clients. Also you are re-using the domain name/DNS namespace and are NOT renaming the domain.

If you are then you have to change the DNS settings on the clients to reflect thier new domain name.

 

[patrichek]

what i did is remove both my servers (PDC and BDC) and put my new server online. ran dcpromo, set the original ip addy of my old server on the new one, kept the same domain name, dns, wins and the like. Basically I'm setting up the new pc to be identical to the old one but don't want to use a system state restore.

I believe from reading old posts that i must go into AD trusts and make this new pc the operations master.

 

[Jpoandl]

Patrichek,

So, id doesn't appear that you are migrating any data or user/groups. This sounds like a clean install and a new domain. Even though you are keeping the same name of the domain, doesn't mean that you user accounts and computer accounts will be able to use the new domain.

You will need to create a user account and groups in the new domain. You will also have to join each computer to the domain. (drop them first to a workgroup and then join the new domain).

Or what you can do is perform a migration.

1) Bring up your old PDC and BDC
2) Install Windows NT on the new server as a BDC of your existing NT 4.0 domain
3) Promote the new server BDC to PDC
4) Upgrade the new server PDC to Windows 2003 (This will upgrade your domain)

But you are probably right, if you are in a small environment, it is probably better just to create a new domain like you did...

-later

Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2003

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