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Force DC out of AD

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by dwdino 1 view

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Hello,

I have a test network of approx 4 machines. These machines were configured as W2K DCs in order to test various items. When testing was completed, certain machines were released to perform other tasks.

The problem is that the DCs were never demoted, so that the remaining DC with AD still contains the listings for these servers. Being that they are DCs, I cannot simply delete them. I have attempted to change the primary group, and I cannot simple format this last DC.

Therefore, the question is: How does one force out DCs in AD when the listing is no longer valid?

5 replies

by lordinfidel

You need to run dcpromo on each DC you want to reomove thus removing the DC from being a DC.

Start/run/dcpromo.

But if you have already reformatted those machines without running dcpromo, well then you have bigger problems.

The other optionis, if you are trying to destroy the domain but keep the last dc's OS in tact. Then by running dcpromo on all machines, one at a time, you will eventually remove the domain.

The by running dcpromo again, on the machine that you want to be the real dc, you can creat the domain again.

The other options are a little on the difficult side because it has to do with editing the domain which is similiar to editing registry hives. A wrong deletion results in disaster.

by timwalsh

I'm assuming you goal is to clean up the AD databse of the remaining DC vs. decommision the DCs that have already been removed.

You must use ntdsutil in Active Directory Restore mode.

Once in ntdsutil, run metadata cleanup. This will "clean up objects of decommisioned servers" in the AD database.

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