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Have to add Primary Server back into AD (Server 2016).

Hello all,

This is kind of weird so bear with me.

Have a client that has two servers on Active Directory. OS is Server 2016. Over Christmas weekend there was a horrible power hit on the pole next to their building. The main server's motherboard and raid controller got fried. Due to the age of the server we could not get an identical motherboard or raid controller so we got the next version. Anyway long story short it looks as though parts of the OS on the main server became corrupt so we have no choice but to put in a new hard drive for the OS and install the OS all over again (the raid controller was for the data drives).

I will name it the same name and IP address, etc. but my question is on FSMO roles.

What I think will have to happen is that I must do a forced transfer of FSMO roles to the secondary server that is up and going right now, since the primary server that is down had all the FSMO roles.

Remove the old primary server with the metadara utility

Add the primary server back into AD

Move FSMO roles from the secondary server to the new primary server.

Is this correct?

Or can I add the new primary back into AD and AD will see it as normal? (I highly doubt this will happen but I can always ask).

How would you deal with putting the primary server back into the mix.

Will not be able to do this until early Monday morning.

Thanks,

Kelly W.

SOLUTION

M A

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Lee W, MVP

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arnold

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CompProbSolv

Very good advice above, but I want to comment on "we could not get an identical motherboard or raid controller so we got the next version ". I would mention that this is a good time to make your server a VM. They are VERY portable. I've had a client's server fail and I was able to throw together a Windows 10 computer with enough disk space and RAM such that I could copy the latest copy of the VM files (VHDX files) to it and get them back up and running quickly. The temporary server was slower, but it worked.

K_Wilke

ASKER

Thank you all very much. It went swimmingly well.