Recovering Windows Server 2003 Domain Controllers

When a Windows Server 2003 domain controller fails, the administrator needs to either recover this server or understand how to completely and properly remove this domain controller from the domain. The following are some questions to consider:

• Did this domain controller host any of the domain or forest Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles?

• Was this domain controller a Global Catalog (GC) server, and, if so, was it the only GC in a single Active Directory site?

• If the server failed due to Active Directory corruption, has the corruption been replicated to other domain controllers?

• Is this server a replication hub or bridgehead server for Active Directory site replication?

Using the preceding list of questions, the administrator can decide how best to deal with the failure. For example, if the failed domain controller hosted the PDC emulator FSMO role, the server could be restored or the FSMO role could be manually seized by a separate domain controller. If the domain controller was the bridgehead server for Active Directory site replication, recovering this server might make the most sense so that the desired primary replication topology remains intact. The administrator should recover a failed domain controller as any other server would be recovered, restore the OS from an ASR restore or build a clean server, restore the system state, and perform subsequent restores of local drive data as necessary.