I have been given a Win 2000 Server domain controller to look after. I know little about them - yet. Thats about to change as I also have to upgrade this PC with a new CPU and motherboard. There is little info available on this DC configuration and I suspect I will end up rebuilding it from scratch. I have little expectation of being able to power it back up, detect some new hardware and install drivers, reconfigure network settings and voila! Yeah right....

I thought I'd go the whole hog and try and create an unnattended setup. What info do I need to export from the DC to recreate it?

Note and script the OU configuration.

Export the security policy. Thats all I can think of at present....

Any pointers to some websites, tools, tips to get me on the way would be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 9, 200719 yr by gorman

Is this the only DC at the site or on the domain? If so, I strongly, STRONGLY recommend not doing what you're about to do.

It's part of a test/reference kit, so not part of a day-to-day working system. The kit has not been used for a while, but is about to get used in the future, with some duplicate test kits to be created too (1DC + 2 clients). Noone left knows much about its configuration - I have the lovely job of finding out....!

My only safe plan so far is to borrow a temp pc, make this a secondary root domain, upgrade original machine then replicate back. I'd like to leave the conguration info in a better state for the next guy though, so, anyone here know how to start capturing all the necessary dc info? Again - Is it "simply" a case of scripting the OUs, groups, user accounts plus exporting the security policy?

Ta.

Edited March 11, 200719 yr by gorman

If you take a system state backup you have all vital data from the active directory in one place.