My domain controller has crashed and I am locked out of the AD

[turnec1]

Hello,
I have inherited an AD, The Domain Controllers has crashed and now I cannot get into it, I have tried the recovery console however I do not have the recovery password, this is a Test and Dev box so I If I can get in I can dcpromo it down to fix the problem. Can anyone help?


Windows 2003, on a VM.

[Maq.H]

If you use the ADSI Edit snap-in, the LDP utility, or any other LDAP version 3 client, and you incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory objects, you can cause serious problems. To remove data in Active Directory after an unsuccessful domain controller crash, follow this steps:-

• Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
• At the command prompt, type ntdsutil, and then press ENTER.
• Type metadata cleanup, and then press ENTER. Based on the options given, the administrator can perform the removal, but additional configuration parameters must be specified before the removal can occur.
• Type connections and press ENTER. This menu is used to connect to the specific server where the changes occur. If the currently logged on user does not have administrative permissions, different credentials can be supplied by specifying the credentials to use before making the connection. To do this, type set creds DomainNameUserNamePassword, and then press ENTER. For a null password, type null for the password parameter.
• Type connect to server servername, and then press ENTER. You should receive confirmation that the connection is successfully established. If an error occurs, verify that the domain controller being used in the connection is available and the credentials you supplied have administrative permissions on the server.
• Continue this procedure on this link

[jesse]

Size the FSMO roles and put them on one of your other Domain Controllers. To know how to seize, see this.

Also look at some similar threads:

Domain Controller restore question
domain controller can not be recognized as domain controller

[turnec1]

Thanks for the information below however I cannot login to the server, the user DB is scrambled.

[newtech]

It is a Base "normal" behavior, Database table field order determined during creation process, if you changes one field it deleted from original place and added as last field. It is not cause problems to experienced users, but who use MS Access earlier or new users, disturbing.
In general, the position of fields in database table can not be a problem, if you use Forms for data input, query and report for data output, it is totally indifferent in which places occupy the fields.
Users who want to use table data grid view it can cause lot of trouble, they changes something and after saving it, all changes lost.