reinstalling a domain controller 2

[1nterpol]

My boss has to reinstall a domain controller this week.

He mentioned that we would have to take a backup of it and demote it from being a domain controller, before we start the re-install.

Its been a while since he has had to do this so he asked me to research the procedure online just to make sure everything goes smoothly.

There seems to be very little documentation for re-installing a domain controller.

I expected a list of must do's and dont's somewhere!

Any sort of advice that i could pass on would be great. Maybe someone has had to do a reinstall lately and could put a few bullet points as to the process.

Just to note, there are 2 other domain controllers on the network and all 3 servers are win 2003 standard.

 

[Dublin73]

If you already have 2 other domain controllers on the network this will be pretty straightforward for you. Your main concern is the domain FSMO roles. All 5 need to exist, as well as a global catalog server.

Transfer the FSMO roles to one of your existing domain controllers (they may already be there). Make sure that one of your 2 remaining domain controllers is enabled as a global catalog server. After all that's done, run dcpromo on the server that you are rebuilding and remove Active Directory.

FYI, unless you have more than 1000 clients on the network, you don't really need 3 domain controllers IF... they are dedicated domain controllers (they aren't used for file storage etc.)

here's a Microsoft how to for transferring FSMO roles...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324801

..and global catalog...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313994

 

[1nterpol]

Thanks for that.

One domain controller is a mail server and the other a file server(the one that has to be rebuilt)

The third is in an anti vandal hut nearby along with a vm-wire server in case the place burns down!

Thanks again, good info

 

[1nterpol]

Not sure if you'll see this, but you mention after using dcpromo to remove active directory.

Is there a reason why you have to remove it seen as you're going to reinstall windows anyway?

 

[Dublin73]

hi, you're running dcpromo to remove active directory from the server (as opposed to removing active directory after running dcpromo). While dcpromo is running, it notifies your other domain controllers that active directory is being removed from the server.

The reasons for this are a bit long winded to go into here, but effectively this keeps the "metadata" clean and prevents potential problems etc.

you could google metadata if you want more info. on it. Good luck with the re-install.

 

[GrimR]

One last thing is that if this is running DHCP or DNS you obviously would need to recreate that on another server.
And for safty sake I would leave the server demoted for at least overnight to allow AD and DNS to replicate. It may seem a long time but from my experience rushing this process causes problems. Then if you are reinstalling it as the same name, I like to delete the name of the demoted server from AD, just to keep things fresh

 

[1nterpol]

Thanks lads, great help