After have been trough this myself in the last couple of weeks and spending a large amount of hours on the phone with MS PSS, this is what my conclusion is.
There are 2 ways to build a AD test environment.
 
First way:
-Do a system disk and system state backup.
-Take a machine that has the same hardware for your lab. (Vendor, raid controller, disks, NIC's, video card, memory, firmware levels) If any of the components are not the same it will take you a lot of hours to find out why it does not work and which component is not working. Even with something as simple as the amount of CPU's.
-Do a system disk and system state restore according to MS Active Directory Disaster Recovery document. (Authoritative restore, restore 2 times, one to org location, one to alternate location, ntdsutil. Reboot, wait for sysvol share, copy sysvol data, etc. etc. etc.
 
Lot of work (many hours, but it can work, but like I said if it is not exactly the same hardware forget it, only $245 with PSS will get it to work.
 
Second way:
-Install the machine that will run your AD in your lab as a DC in your production first. Let it sync up everything and pull it of the wire. (30 minutes).
-Seize all the FSMO roles.
-Clean up the metadata Q216498 (delete all the servers that are no longer in the AD and that will not be restored).
-Delete the servers that you are not going to restore out of Sites and Services.
-Reboot
-Run DCDIAG / V >C:\output.txt Then search this file for any errors
-Check the eventlog for any errors.
 
I always thought that the first way was the preferred way to do it, but after talking to a AD guru at PSS, I learned that the preferred way is number two. Basically what he said is that if you have more that 1 physical site in your company, put a DC there for DR, if not, you better have identical HW available when you need to do a DR, they cannot guarantee it will work on completely different hardware.
 
Good luck!
Fred
 
Fred van Donk
LVBrands
919 990-3532
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
-----Original Message-----
From: STEVEN DANIELS [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 3:19 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Creating AD test enviornment

thanks everyone !
 
Steve Daniels
Lawrence Memorial Hospital
Management Information Systems
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
785-840-3241
 

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>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/28/02 01:16PM >>>

I am SURE there is an easier way to do it – but we have done in the past is to GHOST one of our DC’s.

 

We set that box up in our lab  - SEIZE FSMO ROLES – Use ADSIEDIT to remove the other DC’s and away we go.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: STEVEN DANIELS [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 2:13 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Creating AD test enviornment

 

Hi all,

We need to duplicate are current AD enviornment to a test enviornment. Can =
anyone give some tips or some links on the best way todo this. Thanks in =
advance !

 

 

 

Steve Daniels
Lawrence Memorial Hospital
Management Information Systems
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
785-840-3241

 


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