Tags:
Microsoft, Small Business Server, 2003 R2, Sharepoint after AD dump.
Introduction: A server configuration in a Windows Small Business Server Environment (11 users) was only half completed before the server was put into place. The company had bought a .com domain name, and wanted to move in the direction of handling thier own email and website. So, the plan was to reconfigure the server with a different domain name by dropping active directory and re-adding the role. We would also be readding the 11 users by hand (5 minute job). It was a very simple set-up with a .local domain.
Here are the steps (and the problems) that occured. 1. Verified a FILE backup, unfortunatley this is NOT an ASR, something i overlooked much to my dismay later on in the process.) 2. Used Dcpromo to remove active directory and dns. 3. Then restarted and logged in as the local Administrator(only option as the domain was gone, obviously). 4. Then we used DCpromo again, to re-add the role. That proccess completed successfully. 5. Then restarted again. 6. The server took FOREVER to restart. It Was applying server configuration for over an hour... 7. So we ended the proccess early, and booted to safe mode. IT started right up. I then used msconfig to do selective startup. 8. So i booted again and it came right up in selective startup mode. And from there i attempted to trouble shoot the issue. 9. The domain name changed seemed to be correct and all the settings looked right. I checked the domain name and the dns records. Everything looked perfect and there was no need to worry about exchange or anything, becuase they werent using it to begin with. 10. I then booted to normal mode and waited the 1.5 hours it took to boot to the windows logon screen. 11. Then logged in and waited 45 more minutes (no exaggeration here) to get to the Windows SBS 2003 desktop. 12. There i was able to add users to the domain and setup security groups and domain policy.
Conclusion: ACtive directory and dns seem to be working fine. However, the 3 hour average restart problem is still happening. And the SQL service wont run to get sharepoint back up and running. Because of the restart problem and the services not running we want to reload the box.
Question: How IS it possible to restore sharepoint on a new computer with only a file backup? We have: 1. SQl data files with the SQL databases contained within. 2. The IIS folder and all the web parts originally in it.
Does anyone know the steps to restore sharepoint with this info. I understand that we might lose some user-specific configuration data, as long as we can restore most of it. Has anyone done this before? (We know there is a sharepoint migration tool, but we can only boot in safe mode, and sql service isnt running.)
what version of sharepoint are we talking, and what was the original sharepoint environment (i.e. sharepoint was installed in stand-alone, or sharepoint was installed as farm).
but there are lots of other considerations... depending on what you have. the steps for wss 3.0 or sharepoint 2007 would differ from sharepoint 2.0, and the steps would be different if you had a pre-existing sql installation or if you used the built-in sql with sharepoint
I will investigate the version of sharepoint, but its definitely stand alone. And there is more than one sql database on the machine from other applications, however, the sharepoint sql data files are plainly labeled.
I plan to Load another machine with the SBS-2003 OS with sharepoint and sql server and try to copy and reattach the database files. Id like to try it in a test environment before putting it into a production environment.
Oooh good call. I'm in the process of installing SBS on another box at the moment, to which we will load the back-ups onto. However its not very beefy so the install is taking a bit. We are fairly sure that its SharePoint v3.0 though.
Your .local INTERNAL domain has NOTHING at all to do with your .com INTERNET domain. In fact, its recommended that you ALWAYS use a non-routable (ie, .local) top-level domain name for your Active Directory/Internal domain.
Secondly, you cannot rename the domain on an SBS without completely reinstalling it. But adding a .com email domain is a very simple process of just running the Configure Email and Internet Connection Wizard (CEICW -- which is linked as Connect to the Internet in the Server Management Console > To-Do List)
