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Backing up/exporting/reinstalling SAMs

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NiallCon

MIS
Nov 19, 2002
11
AU
Hi all,
I was wondering if someone could help me please.
We currently have a NT domain using a sole PDC
file/application server. This server ran quite happily
until last week when it decided it wasn't going to reboot
properly after installing a patch..the registry had become
corrupt (absolutely no idea why). No disaster recovery
disk, repair using boot disk didn't work. Separate NT
local NT installation crashed too.
After many phone calls and a bit of registry editing,
managed to get the PDC up and running but in a very
fragile state!. The OS is still struggling but chugging
along. However it has lost a lot of it's functionality and
things like the installer engine don't work because the
registry was so badly damaged.
I have resigned myself to wiping the machine and
reinstalling everything (remembering to backup of
course!). So have the disks, drivers, service packs at the
ready and then i realised i hadn't made a note of the
SAMs. I did a bit of reading up and found that another
Win2K server I have which is sitting on the same domain of
the PDC could be used as a BDC and in that way the SAMS
could be synchronised. When i looked up how to do this I
was told that I would have to install/activate active
directory. I know nothing about active directory and am a
little wary of installing it on the win2k server. Also
being a newer OS, I'm thinking that once I have the PDC
wiped and back up again that I might have problems joining
it back onto the network as the PDC....the win2k BDC might
have taken over?.
Sorry for the long-winded explaination.....is there a way
of exporting the SAMs from the damaged OS into a newly
installed PDC running NT?.

Would be very grateful for any advice.
 
Windows 2000 cannot be a PDC or BDC for a NT 4.x Domain. Whoever told you that is wrong. I suggest setting up another NT 4.x server and make it a BDC. Once that is done promote the new server to be the PDC. Rebuild the "old" PDC (now a BDC). If you like, you can promote the “old” rebuilt server back to the PDC. No matter how small your network, you really should have at least two domain controllers, as you have found out.

MikeL
 
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