Re my above:In the first line I meant you have TWO domain controllers and one is Unservicable.
Main Topics
Browse All TopicsI have a kind of death domain controller that can not communicated with other domain controller. I want to remove it for active directory but when I ran dcpromo /forceremoval
it fail because it always want to update the data base it can't communicated with other domain controller any more then the operation fail. is there another way to remove or make this domain controller a member server only.
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
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.
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.
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.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
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.
Can you just use dcpromo normally to demote it? This would be preferable because if you use /forceremoval you will have to use NTDSUtil to seize the FMSO roles it held anyway.
Basically, if you seize the roles without rebuilding reinstalling Windows (assuming you can't gracefully demote the server) you run the risk of causing serious problems with your domain.
Are you able to transfer it's FSMO roles to another server so it doesn't hold any (see http://support.microsoft.c
IF the DC is dead, then turn it off and remove it from the network - reinstall windows on it - its gone.....
http://www.petri.co.il/del
If you follow that procedure - you MUST reinstall windows before bringing it back up
make sure your other DC is a GC and holds all the roles - its quite a simple process
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: johnny_the_knifePosted on 2008-03-18 at 14:17:50ID: 21155948
Just to clarify, you have one two servers which are domain controllers in an Active Directory domain. One of the domain controllers is un-serviceable and you wish to remove it from the domain.
om/kb/2555 04
If this is the case, and you can't demote the server gracefully, you will need to turn the server off and take it out the back and burn it (or reinstall Windows, up to you), then use ntdsutil on the good domain controller to seize the FSMO roles held by the dead one.
This article describes the steps: http://support.microsoft.c