Member server rejoining domain

[Muhammad Waqar]

I use Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery to take images of the server that we are using incase of disaster recovery. As the part of the restore process the member server is removed from the domain and then you need to have to rejoin it to the domain if you reintroduce it to the domain enviroment. At this point the old server is not on the domain anymore. Instead a restored version of the new server existswith the same SID. I want to ask is that, where there is going to be an issue to unjoin and then rejoin a member server to a domain? Will I need to delete the leftover machine account from the old server in active directory first? Thanks.

[Jerry]

Incase the member server does not have any important role like exchange/sql/sharepoint for example, then you can unjoin it without any issues. Also Domain Controllers from a backup have to follow some method to prevent issues after restore from backups.

[Muhammad Waqar]

I dont know whether I am sure that I am following the process you are telling me, but removing a computer from domain and subsequent rejoining it will result in a different account, along with its attributes, including its SID/GUID. It might have a number of implications, which is either dependant on GUID/SID attributes or any action that is not applied by default as part of the domain join process, for example, membership in a group other than Domain Computers, SPNs, etc.

[Actionguy]

Well, if you want to rejoin the computer to the domain, then follow the below steps:

1. First of all delete the computer account from the directory.
2. After that try to login with a local administrative user.
3. Now you have to join the computer to a workgroup.
4. Lastly you can join the computer to the domain.