Windows Server 2003
--
Questions
--
Followers
Top Experts
Looking for a guide to demote a failed 2003 dc and comprehensive guide to promote a new 2008r2 DC
Hello Experts,
We have two domain controllers and both are running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. One of them failed 3 months ago and it will not replicate anymore as it reached the tombstone period. We know that demoting a failed server only takes us about 5-10 mins as this is only apply to the perfect world. Currently the failed server is completely inaccessible and we are looking for a comprehensive guide to demote our failed server and promote one of our new server running windows 2008 R2. 聽We've read some articles on Microsoft website suggested to perform a dcpromo /forceremoval 聽on the failed dc and perform a meta cleanup on the primary domain controller. Or if there are some other methods that we can perform please let us know. Our goal is get this fix as soon as we can. Thank you for your time!
We have two domain controllers and both are running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. One of them failed 3 months ago and it will not replicate anymore as it reached the tombstone period. We know that demoting a failed server only takes us about 5-10 mins as this is only apply to the perfect world. Currently the failed server is completely inaccessible and we are looking for a comprehensive guide to demote our failed server and promote one of our new server running windows 2008 R2. 聽We've read some articles on Microsoft website suggested to perform a dcpromo /forceremoval 聽on the failed dc and perform a meta cleanup on the primary domain controller. Or if there are some other methods that we can perform please let us know. Our goal is get this fix as soon as we can. Thank you for your time!
Zero AI Policy
We believe in human intelligence. Our moderation policy strictly prohibits the use of LLM content in our Q&A threads.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
Log in or create a free account to see answer.
Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.
SOLUTION
membership
Log in or create a free account to see answer.
Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.
Seth - Do we really need to perform a force removal if the DC completely down? I mean hardware failed...
No, if the hardware is failed and you never brings back online the server the only thing you need to do is metadata cleanup and seize the roles if the server holds one.
sorry...your explanation seemed a bit confusing
if the hardware is dead then yes, do a metadata cleanup
i imagine there is a plethora of replication warnings and errors on the active domain controller
if the hardware is dead then yes, do a metadata cleanup
i imagine there is a plethora of replication warnings and errors on the active domain controller
EARN REWARDS FOR ASKING, ANSWERING, AND MORE.
Earn free swag for participating on the platform.
Awesome guide. We were able to cleanup and promote the new 2008 server to a domain controller successfully!
Windows Server 2003
--
Questions
--
Followers
Top Experts
Windows Server 2003 was based on Windows XP and was released in four editions: Web, Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter. It also had derivative versions for clusters, storage and Microsoft鈥檚 Small Business Server. Important upgrades included integrating Internet Information Services (IIS), improvements to Active Directory (AD) and Group Policy (GP), and the migration to Automated System Recovery (ASR).