How do I restore Active Directory?

A. You can’t restore Active Directory (AD) to a domain controller (DC) while the Directory Service (DS) is running. To restore AD, perform the following steps.

Reboot the computer.
At the boot menu, select Windows 2000 Server. Don’t press Enter. Instead, press F8 for advanced options. You’ll see the following text.

 OS Loader V5.0



Windows NT Advanced Options Menu

Please select an option:



Safe Mode

Safe Mode with Networking

Safe Mode with Command Prompt



Enable Boot Logging

Enable VGA Mode

Last Known Good Configuration

Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows NT domain controllers only)

Debugging Mode



Use | and | to move the highlight to your choice.

Press Enter to choose.

Scroll down, and select Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows NT domain controllers only).
Press Enter.
When you return to the Windows 2000 Server boot menu, press Enter. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see in red text Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows NT domain controllers only).

The computer will boot into a special safe mode and won’t start the DS. Be aware that during this time the machine won’t act as a DC and won’t perform functions such as authentication.

Start NT Backup.
Select the Restore tab.
Select the backup media, and select System State.
Click Start Restore.
Click OK in the confirmation dialog box.

After you restore the backup, reboot the computer and start in normal mode to use the restored information. The computer might hang after the restore completes; I’ve experienced a 30-minute wait on some machines.

End of Article

The artical on restoring Active Directory is incorrect, see Q241594 – Authoritative Restore to DC.

*You have left out the following steps that must be performed after the restore*
After the data has been restored, use Ntdsutil.exe to perform the authoritative restore:
At a command prompt, type ntdsutil, and then press ENTER.

Type authoritative restore and then press ENTER.

Type restore database, press ENTER, click OK, and then click Yes.

David Rokich October 24, 2000

So.. is this mean, you can't ever restore a Active Directory Server on another PC ?

Zaheer Yoonoos March 20, 2001

I removed my DC and now I created a new domani name, It's possible for the clients reconize automatically my nuw domani name?

jcvr March 31, 2004

The article describes a Non-authoritive restore, and you would need to use the ntdsutil utility for an authoritive restore.

Brian April 21, 2004

OF course can restore AD to dissimliar harware machine. Perform Authoritative Restore can bring AD up to date but more complicate. more detail can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263532

chun wong June 29, 2004

Hey, had a DC running the night before, today we moved it to our server room. Now I get this error, cant connect to DC (we have two) tells me to do the restore. I'm woundering if i do this to a DC that is connecting to another DC(which sets up our DCPH) if any thing will FUBAR. Really dont want to screw it up.

Anonymous User August 18, 2005 (Article Rating:

)

Thankyou

clementrosario@gmail.com

clementrosario November 05, 2007 (Article Rating:

)

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