Question

Replace domain controller/data sharing server

Asked by: HOPE-IT

I need to replace old server that is a domain controller and also a file sharing. The reason I want to replace because the hardware is too old and it's crashing. This old server is Windows 2003 domain controller.
I purchased new server and installed Windows 2003. Now I want to demote old domain controller and promote this new server with SAME HOST NAME. How should I do this?
Also, there are about 50 GB of data files on old domain controller, how do I move or copy this 50 GB of data files to new server without losing permission access on these share directories?

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-10-29 at 10:04:23ID24855342
Topics

Windows 2003 Server

,

Active Directory

Participating Experts
5
Points
500
Comments
15

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Ramifications of demoting and re-promoting AD server on …
    I have an AD MDC Server 2000 w/sp 4 that has a corrupt active directory. I am unable to add or remove objects from directory services. Every time I attempt to add an object I get the following message: "Windows cannot create the object because the directory service en...
  2. demoting Windows 2003 domain controller then promotin…
    My current setup consists of the following server 1 - domain controller and global catalog server server 2 - domain controller Server 2 has problems replicating to server 1. (I've just about tried everything I could think of, but still replication problems) So, can I demot...
  3. Will a demoted DC retain all AD informtion when you promot…
    I will be demoting a DC in my work environment in order to promote it as a child in a new parent domain structure. If I demote the DC with all of its current AD information - users and computers - dns and dhcp - will this information be retained when I promote it back to a ch...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: MikeLogsdonPosted on 2009-10-29 at 10:19:59ID: 25695931

 

by: aktharchowdhuryPosted on 2009-10-29 at 10:23:06ID: 25695970

You won't be able to have both servers running with the same name.

You'll have to bring up the new controller with a new name.  You'll want to move all the DC roles over to the new server once you've promoted it.

To copy the files, I would use robocopy.  You'll still have to recreate the user shares and the rights on the share folders.  Either way, once you have all the files copied, You'll want to go back and select the shares, go to properties, advanced, and replicate/replace permissions on the files and sub folders of the shares to ensure they have the access rights you desire.

Once everything is working - AND - the dc roles are on the new box, demote the old box.

Also, you'll want to see if that old box is doing other things such as DNS, WINS, DHCP for your environment and setup the new one correctly for that.

On the server name - share problem, perhaps setup an Alias record in DNS once the old server is gone, pointing to the new server IP.

 

by: xxdcmastPosted on 2009-10-29 at 10:23:29ID: 25695971

This is a multiple step process. First things first, I would reccomend against trying to do this with the same name. We can handle this later with an ALIAS.

1. Active directory - First youll want to get your new server all built with 2003 etc and ready to be DCPROMO'd. Youll want to dcpromo the new server and make it a global catalog server. Now you should have 2 domain controllers on your network.

2. Transfer FSMO roles (if any) - in your question you didnt mention if you had other DC's so im only assuming one. You will want to follow these directions to find and transfer the 5 FSMO roles to the new server.
http://www.petri.co.il/determining_fsmo_role_holders.htm
http://www.petri.co.il/transferring_fsmo_roles.htm

3. Demote old domain controller - Once you have confirmed that all fsmo roles have been transferred and tested everything you can then demote the old DC to a member server. After a reboot it will just be a member server again.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc740017(WS.10).aspx

4. Copy the DATA to a new server - for this I would reccomend using Robocopy with the /mir /sec /copyall command. This will copy all your files and folders with their existing permissions.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.11.utilityspotlight.aspx

5. Recreate shares - Robocopy cant create the shares and sharenames for you so you will have to remake these yourself. I would make the shares the same to reflect the old servers ones. This way when you create the alias the paths will be the same.

6. Remove old server from domain and make alias - Once you have confirmed AD and the data shares all look good you can remove the server from the domain and delete the computer account out of AD. Oncet this is done you can create an alias record in DNS for the new server with the old server name. This way when the user types //oldserver/share it automatically directs them to //newserver/share.

 

by: HOPE-ITPosted on 2009-10-29 at 10:41:35ID: 25696167

how about shared printer on old server? I have about 10 printers on old server, is there a way to move them over or I have to recreate these shared printers?

 

by: aktharchowdhuryPosted on 2009-10-29 at 10:43:23ID: 25696184

Printers - same thing.  I know its a crappy task, but manual way needs to be done, you'll be recreating the TCP-IP ports, adding the drivers and setting up the printer shares for each one.

 

by: mkline71Posted on 2009-10-29 at 10:44:09ID: 25696190

 

by: aktharchowdhuryPosted on 2009-10-29 at 10:48:53ID: 25696243

Print Migrator still works?  I thought it was NT4 -> 2000, 2003.  Not 2003  -> 2003...  Hmms.

 

by: mkline71Posted on 2009-10-29 at 10:51:22ID: 25696273

I'd have to test the 2003 -> 2003...good point, I did a 2000 > 2003

It is worth a shot for the author to test though.

 

by: xxdcmastPosted on 2009-10-29 at 11:02:38ID: 25696378

Print migrator will work on 2003 to 2003. I did it about 3 months ago on our main print server here. Had approximately 60 shared printers on it. About 98% of them came through fine some of the multifunction machines I need to update drivers for but overall worked well.

 

by: aktharchowdhuryPosted on 2009-10-29 at 11:04:24ID: 25696394

Cool news there all around... maybe it will work for 2008 when it comes time for my upgrade.

 

by: HOPE-ITPosted on 2009-10-29 at 11:06:16ID: 25696411

thanks all for you help ... I will replace new server this week and will let you know the update

thanks again,

Tim

 

by: tmoore1962Posted on 2009-10-29 at 15:58:10ID: 25699029

GO TO SBSMIGRATION.COM and get the swing migration package from Jeff it is the only way to go. and is very very direct.

 

by: HOPE-ITPosted on 2009-11-13 at 10:39:54ID: 25816505

this is how I did to replaced our old domain controller

setup new server
join new server to domain
manually setup printers and use same share name and ip address
use xcopy command to copy files/documents from old server to new server
run demote old domain controller as member server
change host name and ip address on old server
change host name and ip address on new server as same old server
run dcpromo on new server
configure dns and dhcp on new server
done

I got this done in 4 hours ... 2.5 hours to copy files/documents from old server to new server

hope this help

Tim

 

by: xxdcmastPosted on 2009-11-13 at 11:51:22ID: 25817111

Too many people offered good solutions to not award one or more people points for their work.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...