Many of us have probably dabbled in setting up our own domain and forest for development purposes. For me - a domain is a must - I have my development environment that is heavily used to model development projects for clents - and I have my family - me, my wife, and 7 children with their own computers.

So, we have a fairly detailed setup on the home front - but the following applies to ANY environment in which your primary domain controller gives up the ghost - and you do not have an image backup of the PDC.

Foremost - clarity: In an Active Directory forest, where you have several domain controllers, but one primary domain controller (PDC) - you may think that you must RESTORE or recover this PDC to salvage the domain. In other words, if the PDC fails - is all lost? Nope, not at all. Unless you do not have backup domain controllers. If you do not - then reading the rest of this is moot - but if you do, then read on.

When you promote additional servers on your domain, and make them member DC's in the same forest, then your domain details are available to you - and you simply need to transfer the Operation Master role to another DC - but before doing that - there are the FSMO's - yea, something hardly anyone knows about: FSMO = Flexible Single Master Operation - something your PDC or master of operations - manages. If a PDC - and Global Catalog for that matter - goes offline, a backup DC will generally pickup and juggle traffic for the PDC. But what happens if the PDC crashes altogether, and you need to basically assign a member backup DC the PDC role?

FSMO must be transferred to a backup DC before that DC can assume the Master of Operations role. This is done at the command-line level, and you must be careful before you make this call - ONLY do this if you are sure you cannot recover the original PDC because once you do this - you cannot laterr recover the PDC and bring it online. It cannot be added back into the forest at all.

So, the FSMO roles and how we transfer these. In a word, you cannot simply transfer the FSMO roles because the PDC is off line and not available to authorize the transfer. However, you 'can' SEIZE the FSMO roles from the original PDC - even with the machine offl line.

Caution: Using the Ntdsutil utility incorrectly may result in partial or complete loss of Active Directory functionality.

Open a CMD prompt on the backup DC you want to perform this on. At the command-line prompt, type Ntdsutil and press <Enter>.

Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
(C) Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp.

C:\WINDOWS>ntdsutil
ntdsutil:

At this prompt, type roles and press <Enter>:

ntdsutil: roles
fsmo maintenance:

Now type connections and press <Enter>:

fsmo maintenance: connections
server connections:

Now type connect to servername <serverName> where <serverName> is the name of the backup DC you are working on, and press <Enter>:

server connections: connect to servername hamddc02

Connected to hamdc02 using credentials of locally logged on user.
server connections:

At the server connections prompt type q and press <Enter>:

server connections: q
fsmo maintenance:

Now we are going to SEIZE the FSMO roles we want. NOTE: Out of the 5 FSMO roles, we are NOT going to seize the Infrastructure Master. We do not want to put the Infrastructure Master (IM) role on the same domain controller as the Global Catalog server. If the Infrastructure Master runs on a GC server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a GC server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. For now, we'll seize the following:

Seize domain naming master
Seize PDC
Seize RID master
Seize schema master

We do this by typig the line shown above. For example, to seize the domain naming master, type seize domain naming master and press <Enter>

You will receive a Windows dialog prompting to confirm this move - click <Yes> and then you'll see the attempt to safely transfer the FSMO role, a failure message, and then it will seize the role, assigning it to the backup DC you specified when you connected to the server above.

Once you have completed this for the 4 roles, type Quit to exit the utility, then Exit to return to Windows.

From the Start menu, select Run and enter dsa.msc and press <Enter>.

On the domain that is displayed, right click and select Operations Masters. You should now see that this backup domain controller (HAMDC02 in this case) is not the Operations master.

From here you simply re-create the failed domain controller, and promote it - joining it to this existing forest.

Hopefully others will find this useful.

I remember the book by Harold Robbins very well, but it was when I was reading this book that I was introduced to country music and a life that I'll never forget - notwithstanding my career in technology.

Long before I was a coder I was a countruction worker by day and guitar player at night. Mostly I favored the folk songs of the '60's and '70's - but about the time I entered technology - I also ran into a group of guys that will forever be family.

In my early to mid 20's I was picked to play in a band that was then a fill-in in the CMA - basically union players that traveled the circuit in the SE United States (or wherever they were called to) - and I remember my first gig with Gary Morris. I was humbled to be called and facinated with the opportunity to be able to open and play behind a great musician. I had no idea that the next several years of my life would bring me close to legends like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, the Ole Possum - and many more 'old' folks (as I called them) that I had a blast listening to and playing behind.

Recently I had the opportunity to go and visit much of the old band - what's left of the crew anyway. They're well retired, in their 70's, and I had not picked with any of them in over 14 years. My trip down memory lane - and 3 hours of picking in northern Alabama 2 weeks ago - made me take the pause to reflect on memories of another day - perhaps not a long time forgotten just yet.

I had to make the trip south for personal reasons and simply made it a point to visit the ol' boys - and my time with them really made me take pause and reflect on what I have today.

My mentor in the CMA - Pappy to those close to him - RBJ otherwise, served our country in the Army Security Agency - after doing a term in the US Navy. He was stationed in the Aleutians - on Shemya - for the better part of 18 months. You would have to researh this island and our history from WWII to really appreciate where Pappy has been. My brief visit with my old friend was a time of reflection for me because of personal tragedy in my life - and a time of reflection for Pappy too. I had no idea really where he'd been or what he'd done outside of our music career together. And it was facinating to hear some of this history.

I came away from this trip with a resounding reminder that no matter how tough things seem in my life - they're a lot tougher for others - I guess it just depends on which way the pendulum is swinging :)

As a picker in the 70's/80's - there was no Internet to distract me, or perhaps remind me - of history. Life was 9-5 during the day and a blast at night.

In today's technologically driven as well as challenged life style - there is a whisper of history to be found at your finger tips - on the Net - and a recounting of days, years, and lives past that is simply incredible - if only I take the journey.

Nope... this was not intended to be a Geek post that would provide you with some really enlightening step-by-step that you are fervently searching to find. It is simply a tribute to a friend - Pappy - that needed to be paid. With all of the history and color in my past, hard times and good, I have truly lived, and been richly blessed. Thank you my friend, and God bless...