FSMO roles seized from server.. What to do with 'server'??

[blakey2]

Hi All,

I came into work yesterday morning after a nice easter break to find my PDC requesting a 'Directory Services Restore'.

The machine which was the PDC emulator (and held all FSMO) roles had installed Server 2003 SP2 during my absence, automatically rebooted and died.

Due to the lack of a suitable system state backup, I took it off the network and seized all FSMO roles with the secondary DC.

Network and Exchange back up - users happy.

Now I wish to bring the 'dead server' back online, obviously not while it thinks of itself as any sort of DC or FSMO role holder.

I'm about to see if I can forcibly demote it and clean up the metadata etc but I am not aware that this is a suitable method?

Is this a waste of time and should I simply format it, kick the bloke whom did not check the system state backups (or lack there of) -me- and take it from there?

Cheers.

 

[technome]

I'm about to see if I can forcibly demote it and clean up the metadata etc but I am not aware that this is a suitable method?"
That is what I would do. Once the metadata is cleaned up, for all purposes the "dead" AD server is none existent in the AD database. DcPromo it back in, move the roles back if it is practical.The only reason for a rebuild, after a metadata cleanup, is if the server had other issues. Count yourself lucky, I assume you don't have a dozen SQL databases on it.



........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[blakey2]

Hi technome,

Thanks for the reply - I shall do this then.

Nah, no SQL DB happily. Basically PDC/Print/DNS/DHCP etc.

Seized roles, setup printers, scripts to map printers and DHCP and was basically good to go.

If I had to format and reinstall the OS, then it would be no great task, however i would prefer to avoid it if I can.

Cheers

 

[djtech2k]

I agree. If you do this offline with a dcpromo /forceremoval and then clean up the metadata in the live environment, then re-introduce the old box and promo it back up you should be ok. I would advise you to be very careful and thorough with the metadata cleanup though. Sometimes small things like DNS entries can cause problems.

I would suggest looking at the Petri site for some of these processes.

http://www.petri.co.il/ad.htm