Adding W2K12 DC to 2003 domain

[yhttech]

I'm trying to replace my 2 2003 servers with 2 2K12 servers. Everything has been going good until I tried to make the 2 new 2K12 boxes DCs. I'm running the ADDS wizard from server manager, and I follow the steps, and on the results screen, both servers come back and say that ADPrep execution failed -> System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (0x80004005): A device attached to the system is not functioning. Both servers are brand new and OS was factory installed. No bangs in either machine's device manager. One forum suggests making sure remote registry service is running on old DCs, which it is. I have no problem browsing, pinging or accessing files or folders stored on either 2003 DC. I'd imagine that I should complete the AD migration before migrating DHCP from the old 2003 server, then demote the old servers and authorize the new DHCP server.

[SYNACK]

Sounds like it is having trouble upgrading the AD schema to support the 2012 DCs, this could be because there is still a DC account of a previous server that has not been removed cleanly in AD or a permissions issue or something similar.

 

You should look at running DCdiag on your 2k3 servers and seeing if that throws anything up DCDiag Tutorial Examples. Check your Windows Active Directory (+ Free Download)

 

If not I'd try running the schema upgrade manually on one of the 2k3 DCs before you start the wizards which may well sort it.

[Michael]

I'd agree with the above, the recommended procedure is to insert your 2012 disc into your 2003 server to upgrade the schema. The schema will then be compatible to accept a 2012 DC.

[MkII]

Does it work with 2003? Don't you have to be on 64bit 2008+ like with a full upgrade??

[snagrat]

I always run adored manually with the /forestprep first then /domainprep

 

You have to it that from the 2012 box after it is on the domain, and make sure you are logging in as a domain admin user.

 

Once run try running promoting to a DC then.

[Michael]

Does it work with 2003? Don't you have to be on 64bit 2008+ like with a full upgrade??

 

The schema doesn't work like that - it just needs to be up-to-date to support the latest server OS.

 

For example you can have a 2003 R2 32Bit Server and a 2008 R2 64Bit Server, both setup as Domain Controllers in the same domain, but the schema level would be updated to support the latest info needed by newer server OSes before you introduced the 2008 R2 64Bit Server.

 

By updating the schema, you can then optionally raise the domain and forest functional levels once all your DCs are 2008 R2 for example.

[MkII]

interesting thanks!