removing a problem DC, which option is the best?

[PrimaryTech]

Hi all
Currently one of my school's is running 2 DC's, a W2K3 PDC and a W2K BDC. Recently the FRS has not been replicating and I've tried to sort it but have decided to demote the BDC to a member server. PDC holds the GC and all the operations master roles and is the primary DNS server.

Bearing in mind that replication is not working would it be better to demote using dcpromo.exe (which will invoke a replication that will probably fail) or remove the BDC from the network and do a forceful demotion and meta data cleanup?

What would happen if I just turned the BDC off (it's slated for retirement)?

Any help or previous experiences gratefully welcome!!

[FN-GM]

What would happen if I just turned the BDC off (it's slated for retirement)?

It will make things worse.

I would try do a dcpromo first. If not remove it from AD manually.

[SYNACK]

I would try a dcpromo as this is the cleanest way, if that fails you can (as the roles are already on the other server) remove it from the network then do a manual cleanup of its AD object so that there are not broken refferences left in AD which could cause issues and prevent the use of that computername in future.

Delete Failed DCs from Active Directory
How to remove data in Active Directory after an unsuccessful domain controller demotion

[glennda]

I would do as synack says - if dcpromo fails you have the fallback option of the ad cleanup - if ad cleanup gets buggered up = alot more painstaking work!