Dr Hu

Seems to be Server 2003 day today on here!

I was forced to turn off our lone Server 2003 AD DC last night due to a major outage, and promote an old NT4 BDC to be primary so everyone could log on this morning - now our 2003 Server is back up, the old NT Server Manager still thinks the old BDC is still Primary.

Under ADUsers & Comps - the server FSMO roles look correct & it should be the NT4 PDC emulator, but it reports it not running (or can't find one or similar can't remember now)

Everyone still logs in OK on the Server 2003 machine so its not desperate, but I really want to get the PDC emulator running properly again, and to demote the old BDC back to a BDC on NT.

Any ideas or am I really screwed?

n.b Trying to Promote the Server 2003 box to primary under the old NT Server Manager comes up with Access Denied

Is there a way to force Primary under 2003?

We are in the middle of an NT upgrade so thats why we only have one server on AD at the mo!

Don't suppose a simple reboot of the NT box would sort it? I can't do this at the mo as it has all the home directories on it....out of hours job!

Dr Hu

Answering my own question possibly, but how about if I load up a spare PC as another NT server as a BDC, promote it to be the PDC (thus demoting my other important NT server) and then just removing the newly promoted spare totally.....

Therefore there are no NT PDC's available, just the W2k3 server acting as a PDC emulator......hmmmmm

Any reasons why this may not work?

I still have 4 PC's on my network that are NT4, all the rest are 2k or above.

doobiedooo

You can seize the PDC emulator role manually using one of the AD Cli ulilities called ntdsutil.exe.

I have never done this with an NT4 PDC active on the network but I think it should demote the NT4 box back to a BDC at the same time (I may be wrong tho!).

Search for "seize roles" on google - that should help.

David_Wallis

as said above.. you havent exactly done it the correct way.. as said you need to seize the role.

To seize the PDC emulator role
Open Command Prompt.
Type:
ntdsutil

At the ntdsutil command prompt, type:
roles

At the fsmo maintenance command prompt, type:
connections

At the server connections command prompt, type:
connect to server DomainController

At the server connections prompt, type:
quit

At the fsmo maintenance command prompt, type:
seize PDC

I would create an Emergency Repair disk on the PDC and also update the repair info as a minimum.

David

roblane

don't believe the role seize will work if the 2003 box still thinks its the PDCe.

You may be able to use the following from KB167248.

To demote the original PDC just brought back online, use Server Manager.
Under the View menu, clear the check box next to "Show domain members
only." This allows a browse list to inform Server Manager that the
computer is configured as a PDC, and will allow it to be demoted. Select
the original PDC, and select "Demote to backup domain controller" under
the Computer menu.


If you're still stuck drop me some mail..