Domain Controller W2K rebuild

[armadillo]

Has any of you re-built a w2k domain controller? if so can you advise or point me to a resource site which might make my life easier.

It's an existing w2k DC which I need to rebuild due to problems with ranger synch.

Thanks in advance for your support.

[srochford]

What else is on it apart from the DC role? When you say "rebuild" do you mean complete reinstall of w2k or just repromotion to DC?

If it's just a DC then it's pretty easy. Key thing to do is to make sure you have another DC (if you don't then install W2k server on any machine, promote it to be a DC). You then transfer the FSMO roles to it and make it a global catalog. Now you have all your active directory safely stored you run dcpromo on the first DC and demote it to a member server. You can then safely wipe and rebuild (or just dcpromo it back up if there was just a problem with the AD on that machine).

Having got your first machine rebuilt you transfer the FSMO roles back to it and, again, make it a global catalog.

The dcpromo down/up bit is very simple and quick (depending on number of users but it's only a few minutes even for 10,000 users); building the server from scratch takes longer but you should easily get the whole thing done in a morning.

If the DC has other software then it may be much more difficult - it depends on whether you can just reinstall the other software later (eg a SQL database can be backed up, SQL removed and then reinstalled to the new machine and the database restored. It's tedious but perfectly possible)

[Geoff]

Might be more useful if you just post when you hit a problem.

[armadillo]

Thanks for your help- the server is a DC and I have printing and Ranger running on it.

The reason I want to rebuild it is when I try to install anything such as re-applying SP4 it doesn't do it and it just hangs. I think by just re-promoting it into a DC it won't solve the problem and a complete re-install is needed.

I have 2 DCs and the first DC is OK and I have Active Directory, Sophos and Ranger running on it.