Forcing Demotion of a Domain Controller

The other day I was attempting to install a new antivirus software on one of my company’s remote domain controllers. Everything was going fine except the antivirus couldn’t create the user account it needs to perform updates.

I checked the knowledge base for my antivirus company (It’s Sophos if you must know) and they suggested trying to manually create the account in Active Directory if it is on a Domain Controller. When I opened up Active Directory Users and Computers, it defaulted to the next closest Domain Controller. When I tried to select the server I was on, I got an error message.

Apparently, one of our Systems administrators was doing some meta data cleanup a few weeks ago to try to fix some replication errors, and may have accidentally deleted this particular server’s roll as a Domain Controller. Ouch!

It was still a part of the domain, so I tried to simply demote it and re-promote it again. This is where I ran into an issue. When I tried to demote it I got the following error:

Error: An error occurred:
Win32 Error 8419(0x20e3): The DSA object could not be found.

I tried a few things with DNS, but nothing worked. I finally had to break down and force the demotion of the server. If you have never done it, you run the following command:

dcpromo /forceremoval

This runs dcpromo and ignores all errors. Once complete, the server will reboot and will no longer be a part of the domain.

When that was complete, I deleted the server object from Active Directory Users and Computers, and forced replication to the other Domain Controllers. I then ran the ntdsutils command line utility to make sure there wasn’t any stale metadata left over.

After that I tried to rejoin the server to the domain. I wasn’t able to, apparently the SID data was still in AD. To correct that I ran newsid from Sysinternals to change the SID and rebooted it. When it came back up, I rejoined it to the domain, and ran dcpromo successfully.

I’ve been keeping my eye on it, and everything seems to be replicating without issue. Hurray!

This just goes to show you that when trouble shooting the underbelly (AKA the Schema) of Active Directory, be careful, and pay close attention to what you are doing. One simple mistake can cause big problems.

Has anything like this happened to you? What caused it? How did you fix it? Did you do something similar? Let me know in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Error 8419(0x20e3),dcpromo,force,removal,domain,controller

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You've Got 'Doggie-Mail'

If you're hearing dogs talk to you, don't panic. It may only be your e-mail.

Petcentric.com, a Web site devoted to information and stories about pets, recently introduced a feature called "Doggie-Mail," an interactive service that allows dog lovers to send free e-mail messages in the voice of their very own customized canine.

When visitors log on to the site, they can choose one of three animated dogs to convey their message and then customize the character's wardrobe, props and scene. They can choose to deck out their dog in a cowboy hat and dress shirt, or jazz up the pooch's panache with a feather boa and sunglasses. They can then pick a variety of backdrops for the dog, including a dude ranch or a festive Hawaiian beach.

After choosing a dog and customizing its outfit, users select a prerecorded message for the dog to speak, or type in their own message and choose a voice to accompany it. Petcentric.com also offers a toll-free number where users can record a message in their own voice. Once the e-mail has been customized, they can send the talking dog and its message to as many friends as they like.

Visitors to the site can also watch clips of actor and author John O'Hurley reading excerpts from his new book "It's Okay to Miss the Bed on the First Jump: And Other Life Lessons I Learned from Dogs."

"Dogs bring out a host of emotions in us," said O'Hurley, "not the least of which is humor."

For more information or to start using Doggie-Mail, visit www.petcentric.com. The site also contains a gallery of pet photos submitted by subscribers, feature articles, product and book reviews and other pet-related content.- (NewsUSA)

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Make Traffic Lights Change!

Here is another video from one of my new favorite websites, KipKay.com. In this segment, Kip shows you the "secret code" to press at the cross walk to make the traffic signal change in your favor! Check it out!






Once again the combination is:

3 Short Clicks

2 Long Clicks

1 Short Click

2 Long Clicks

3 Short Clicks

Print this post out so you don't have to remember!

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