Domain Controller MBoard Upgrade

[gorman]

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, 2007 by gorman

[cluberti]

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.

[gorman]

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, 2007 by gorman

[rion]

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