HEEELP - Main host server has just gone down

[pantscat]

Is there a roaming or mandatory profile associated with the new account you've created?

[TwistedHelixis]

Is there a roaming or mandatory profile associated with the new account you've created?

no no

 

Thinking I might seize the roles on the working DC, then wipe this and do a standard dcpromo. what do you think?

 

lots of errors about replication in event logs

[pantscat]

What does DCDIAG say?

[rrrrr]

no no

 

Thinking I might seize the roles on the working DC, then wipe this and do a standard dcpromo. what do you think?

 

lots of errors about replication in event logs

 

Transfer roles to working dc and make sure network works ok on 1dc first. If it does, add the current one as a new dc to share load?

 

Or leave this server and do a 2nd dc as a vm?

[TwistedHelixis]

OK going to transfer the roles from my faulty 2012r2 DC server to my working 2008r2 DC. only ever gone from 2008 to 2012r2 and in my instructions it say to open mmc and then open add Active Directory Schema but I do not get that option on the 2012r2 server.

[TwistedHelixis]

its ok i forgot to regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll first

[TwistedHelixis]

nooooooo

 

Trying to move the schema roles I get Active directory schema snap-in is not connected to the schema operations master.

[TwistedHelixis]

ok I am making stupid mistakes due to lake of sleep.

[TwistedHelixis]

All roles have been transferred to my older DC. yay

[TwistedHelixis]

Think I am almost there. DHCP is on the older DC and working, clients can login and browse resources.

 

Question: Faulty DC is currently switched off, do I turn it on and remove it from the network or leave it off and remove all trace of it from my current DC. I am worried about turning it on as it had all sorts of issues and everything is back up and working.

[rrrrr]

Think I am almost there. DHCP is on the older DC and working, clients can login and browse resources.

 

Question: Faulty DC is currently switched off, do I turn it on and remove it from the network or leave it off and remove all trace of it from my current DC. I am worried about turning it on as it had all sorts of issues and everything is back up and working.

 

If you transferred the roles i would try and do a graceful remove.

If you seized the roles i would leave off, having duplicate fsmo roles wont be good

[TwistedHelixis]

Well things have take a turn for the worse. The raid went down on the old server so now we have no dc servers. You couldn't make this up.

 

So I have 3 options,

1 Authrative restore

2 Complete domain rebuild

3 Or restore the host vm backup I took of the dc and see what happens.

[rrrrr]

Well things have take a turn for the worse. The raid went down on the old server so now we have no dc servers. You couldn't make this up.

 

So I have 3 options,

1 Authrative restore

2 Complete domain rebuild

3 Or restore the host vm backup I took of the dc and see what happens.

 

Could you not restore the backup of the 2nd dc to a new vm and repeat what you have done to get to a working state?

 

I would probably look at doing virtual dcs either way. Prob try restoring system state to vms. If your going to only do 1 dc for the moment, do authoritative restore.

 

So close! Friday 13th living upto its name

[TwistedHelixis]

Going in tomorrow - I feel sick.

 

So ill give authoritative restore a go.

[rrrrr]

I would definitely go down the virtual route at this point, server 2012 supports dc replication to prevent this in the future.

 

A night of research is in order!

[round2it]

Good luck feel for ya

[TwistedHelixis]

Would love to have more than one virtual server but this is a primary school and it's a struggle to get them to buy a new server every 5 - 7 years.

 

Just so you know the server that went down was only a few months old and was host / virtual with a virtual data server and a virtual dc.

 

When I ran a host backup of the data server I also included the DC, out of interest what would happen if I restored the vm dc? seeing as I now don't have any other domain controllers.

[rrrrr]

Would love to have more than one virtual server but this is a primary school and it's a struggle to get them to buy a new server every 5 - 7 years.

 

Just so you know the server that went down was only a few months old and was host / virtual with a virtual data server and a virtual dc.

 

When I ran a host backup of the data server I also included the DC, out of interest what would happen if I restored the vm dc? seeing as I now don't have any other domain controllers.

 

Not 100% sure on what you mean.

 

Would love to have more than one virtual server

Do you mean 1 physical server?

 

hen I ran a host backup of the data server I also included the DC, out of interest what would happen if I restored the vm dc?

 

My understanding from above

1x physical server that hosts 1x virtual dc and 1x virtual data server

 

Where does the 2nd dc come in to this?

[TwistedHelixis]

Would love to have more than one virtual server

Do you mean 1 physical server?

 

lack of sleep, sorry

 

For the past 6 or so years they have had 1 physical server with everything on it, AD, DHCP, DNS, SQL, DATA etc.

 

Recently got the go ahead to order a new server which I installed as a host with 2 virtual servers, 1 data server and 1 DC. I had migrated everything over a few weeks back including the server roles but left the old physical server as the second DC.

 

Does that make sense?

[TwistedHelixis]

So on the new server before it died I was using windows backup to not only take system state backup from within the vm OS, but also virtual machine backups from the host level.

 

I have rebuilt the host and restored the DATA VM server using the Host level vm backup.

 

Along with the system state backup I also took a backup of the entire DC VM from the host level and am wondering what would happen if I restored the DC using this host level restore.

 

Really hope that makes sense, if not I'll reply after some sleep.

 

Thanks for the help, I really do appreciate it.

[rrrrr]

So on the new server before it died I was using windows backup to not only take system state backup from within the vm OS, but also virtual machine backups from the host level.

 

I have rebuilt the host and restored the DATA VM server using the Host level vm backup.

 

Along with the system state backup I also took a backup of the entire DC VM from the host level and am wondering what would happen if I restored the DC using this host level restore.

 

Really hope that makes sense, if not I'll reply after some sleep.

 

Thanks for the help, I really do appreciate it.

 

Yeah makes sense.

If you restore the dc vm to a point before the disaster recovery attempts and run it as a sole vm so it does not try and sync with anything.

If want to add a 2nd dc, do it from scratch, no restoration.

Might be a plan!

[TwistedHelixis]

Should i try a system state authoritative restore first and then if that fails see what happens if I restore the host level vm dc backup.

 

Right of to bed.

[rrrrr]

Should i try a system state authoritative restore first and then if that fails see what happens if I restore the host level vm dc backup.

 

Right of to bed.

 

What are you restoring to? Vm or physical?

I would restore vm dc, boot it up, see how it functions. (Dont connect any other dc's)

This should act like nothing happened as the backed up version would never had any contact with failed or restored dc's and if it has fsmo roles, it can act independently.

 

What originally had fsmo roles, physical or virtual?

[TwistedHelixis]

The new failed vm dc had all the roles

[round2it]

Hows it going. This thread made me think about beefing up my backups