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Promoting BDC to PDC

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7 replies

by rlevesque

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I recently installed a new BDC and wanted to promote it to the PDC. That supposedly went fine and without errors.

Then, today, after I rebooted the original PDC,(which I'll call Maple from now on) which is now a BDC, my servier manager shows 3 BDC's and n PDC. Come to find out, After about 10 minutes, Maple is back to being a PDC and my new server is now a BDC

Any hints or ideas? I would really like the old Maple server to stay at being a BDC once and for all!

Richard

7 replies

by cavedweller

This page from Microsoft seems to cover your situation:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q112/5/49.asp

Here is the gist:

It may be necessary to promote a Backup Domain Controller (BDC) to PDC when the original PDC fails. In the event that the original PDC is unavailable during this process, it is necessary to promote the BDC without having the PDC on-line. ...

...Promoting the BDC to PDC should work properly at this point. When the original PDC is restarted, it attempts to also become the PDC, and two Windows NT Advanced Server computers will both think they are PDCs for the same domain...

To demote one of the PDCs:
Stop the NetLogon service on the current PDC by typing Net Stop NetLogon.

Highlight the machine name of the original PDC and then on the Computer menu, select Demote To Server. This changes the role of the original PDC to BDC.

Restart the NetLogon server by typing Net Stop NetLogon.

Again, please read the full article for complete information before you do anything.

by rlevesque

I saw that article beforehand. Unfortunately, this isn't the same situation. I do not have two PDC's showing.

After making the changes and promoting the BDC to my new PDC, everything was running fine. The new computer was running and shown as a PDC, where as the old PDC, was running and shown as a BDC.

Only after rebooting the old PDC (now a BDC), did it force a changing back to the old way, where my new computer became a BDC and the old computer became the PDC.

Any other thoughtsor ideas?

by stef gerber

What you did was right. Now make sure that the old PDC is showing in server manager as a BDC. If the old PDC does this again ...
I know there is a registry hack that you can set to always force a server as a BDC sorta like browse masters.

by Member 35772270

Promote the BDC that you want to be the PDC again and syncronize the domain. Sometimes there is too much lagging and it takes a while to show up correctly. Another option might be, remove maple from the domain (Delete account), promote you BDC to PDC, (create new account for maple using same name as before) then bring Maple back up and join the domain, you should be prompt to make it a BDC or PDC.

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