Corrupt AD HELP!!

[Geoff]

So the server is DNS / DHCP / Print Server / Etc.

Generally these aren't a big deal to bring up on another DC. Especially if your DNS is AD integrated.

Plus is houses all user folders / profiles / network shares.

presumably you have all this data safely backed up.

At the moment windows has stoped the server from replicating with DC02. The main issues now are the Event ID: 474 NTDS ISAM / Event ID: 1084 NTDS ISAM.

This is windows attempting to stop data corruption propagating to your other DC.

AD on DC01 can be accessed now and all data seems to be there except I get errors when trying to access an OU which houses all the IT suite computers.

Because AD is corrupt on the server.

I am hoping now that this issue is being caused by the faulty hard drive and that "IF" i can image the old / new disks then AD will replicate again. Clutching at straws I know.

Yes, but you'll need to do an authoritative restore from your second dc.

[Busybub]

Might be a bit late but you may get additional AD problems if you install a DC using an existing name without cleanly demoting the existing one.

From experience I would demote the troublesome server (after transferring roles) before doing anything else!

If you don't cleanly demote the DC, any new DC using the same name will have a new GUID allocated. You will get replication errors everywhere as your online DCs attempt replication with a server that doesn't actually exist. If you are lucky you will be able to get rid of the rogue entry by doing a metadata cleanup in ntdsutil. If you are unlucky you will be stuck with it forever.

Using a known good backup may not help if it is more than a few days old. The last time I tried it with a 3 day old backup, the server had changed its GUID... *argh* ... and the restored DC appeared as a different computer.

Cheers for all the info guys. I will back on site tomorrow, hopefully with a shiny new HDD waiting. So be ready for lots more questions :P