Rebuilding SYSVOL 2003

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Afternoon Guys,

 

Has anyone got any experience with rebuilding a SYSVOL partition on a 2003 server?

 

The server is the only DC and we have no backups that go back far enough with a working SYSVOL to do a restore from.

 

All the instructions online seem to talk about copying from another working DC which we dont really have.

 

The File Replication Service is unable to add this computer to the following replica set:

"DOMAIN SYSTEM VOLUME (SYSVOL SHARE)"

 

This could be caused by a number of problems such as:

-- an invalid root path,

-- a missing directory,

-- a missing disk volume,

-- a file system on the volume that does not support NTFS 5.0

 

The File Replication Service is in an error state. Files will not replicate to or from one or all of the replica sets on this computer until the following recovery steps are performed:

 

Recovery Steps:

 

[1] The error state may clear itself if you stop and restart the FRS service. This can be done by performing the following in a command window:

 

net stop ntfrs

net start ntfrs

 

If this fails to clear up the problem then proceed as follows.

 

[2] For Active Directory Domain Controllers that DO NOT host any DFS alternates or other replica sets with replication enabled:

 

If there is at least one other Domain Controller in this domain then restore the "system state" of this DC from backup (using ntbackup or other backup-restore utility) and make it non-authoritative.

 

If there are NO other Domain Controllers in this domain then restore the "system state" of this DC from backup (using ntbackup or other backup-restore utility) and choose the Advanced option which marks the sysvols as primary.

 

If there are other Domain Controllers in this domain but ALL of them have this event log message then restore one of them as primary (data files from primary will replicate everywhere) and the others as non-authoritative.

 

 

[3] For Active Directory Domain Controllers that host DFS alternates or other replica sets with replication enabled:

 

(3-a) If the Dfs alternates on this DC do not have any other replication partners then copy the data under that Dfs share to a safe location.

(3-b) If this server is the only Active Directory Domain Controller for this domain then, before going to (3-c), make sure this server does not have any inbound or outbound connections to other servers that were formerly Domain Controllers for this domain but are now off the net (and will never be coming back online) or have been fresh installed without being demoted. To delete connections use the Sites and Services snapin and look for

Sites->NAME_OF_SITE->Servers->NAME_OF_SERVER->NTDS Settings->CONNECTIONS.

(3-c) Restore the "system state" of this DC from backup (using ntbackup or other backup-restore utility) and make it non-authoritative.

(3-d) Copy the data from step (3-a) above to the original location after the sysvol share is published.

 

 

[4] For other Windows servers:

 

(4-a) If any of the DFS alternates or other replica sets hosted by this server do not have any other replication partners then copy the data under its share or replica tree root to a safe location.

(4-b) net stop ntfrs

(4-c) rd /s /q c:\windows\ntfrs\jet

(4-d) net start ntfrs

(4-e) Copy the data from step (4-a) above to the original location after the service has initialized (5 minutes is a safe waiting time).

 

Note: If this error message is in the eventlog of all the members of a particular replica set then perform steps (4-a) and (4-e) above on only one of the members.

 

For more information, see Help and Support Center at Events and Errors Message Center: Basic Search.

[sukh]

Hi

 

If there are no other DC's then this errors is related to DFS.

 

1. Are you using DFS?

2. When did this issue start?

3. What OS and SP is the server on?

 

Sukh

 

Sukh

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No DFS,

 

Just checked back and it started over a year ago, only really noticed something wasnt right when ive tried to deploy some new settings via GPO

 

Server 2003 SP2

[sukh]

did you ever have more than one DC at any stage?

[pagelad]

Nope, only ever has the one.

 

Was a clean install from scratch

[sukh]

See below.

 

How to rebuild the SYSVOL tree and its content in a domain