Backup Active Directory Server Tanked/No BU

[SCLDTony]

Hello,

One of my backup active directory servers suffered a hard drive error. While attempting to rebuild the RAID container, we hosed the container. And all the data that was on it. Without a backup.

Ok... no need to laugh (well, as long as I don't have to hear you). We know we screwed up.

But, can we remove the server from the Active Directory and just rebuild it with the same name? This server was a backup WINS and DNS server. That is all it did other than serve as a backup login server for AD.

Would it be easier to just create a new backup AD server with a new name? We have four other backup AD servers throughout the WAN so this is not the end of the world, but we would like to get this server back online.

Any opinions or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Tony

 

[swabs]

You are going to need to completely remove any record of the original server from Active Directory. You can use the tool "ntdsutil" and use the metadata cleanup option to remove all of the records of that failed DC.

That will allow you to cleanly installed the machine, add it as a member server, and then promote it to a DC.

 

[SCLDTony]

Thanks. That is what I was afraid of. I CAN boot to the NTSF partition (using NTFSDOS Pro) and see that all of the files are still there. But when I go to boot the server, it complains that windows\system32\config\system is not there. Which I think is the registry. It IS there, but perhaps it is corrupt. I am still hoping I can find a way to get this server to boot.

Thanks for the response and the tip about ntdsutil.