You probably want to go and buy (and read) some AD books. I do this all the time - I have 5 DCs in virtual machines on this laptop, and I have no need to start all of them to be able to login to one of them. But there are many things that could break what you are trying to do.
"I get an error" isn't very helpful either. Cheers Ken From: MarvinC [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, 8 January 2008 11:32 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Copying AD data to another server (lab) I'm missing something and it's driving me nutz! I dcpromo the member server making it a DC in an existing domain, make sure DNS is installed, make the server a GC and allow a full replication, yet when take it offline and attempt to log in I get an error. On Dec 27, 2007 10:58 AM, Michael B. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: Sure. Just on your "lab" domain you need to seize all the fsmo roles. Regards, Michael B. Smith MCSE/Exchange MVP http://TheEssentialExchange.com<http://theessentialexchange.com/> From: MarvinC [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>] Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 10:12 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Copying AD data to another server (lab) I may have asked this but don't recall getting a response so excuse me for posting it again but I need to know if this is possible. Has anyone ever tried and/or been successful at moving active directory data to an alternate server? I'm trying to create a test lab for this environment and wanted to copy the existing AD structure to the new test server. As of right now I've brought up a new server on the network, ran dcpromo and selected it to function as a DC in an existing domain. I take the server off the network and log in with cached credentials but when trying to open ADUC I'm informed that the "Naming information cannot be located because the specified domain doesn't exist or cannot be contacted". I'm sure one of the reasons is the FSMO roles so I'm trying to figure out the best way to get them and the entire forest moved to this new server. In NT4 you could configure a server to be a BDC, take it offline, and then promote it to a PDC and the entire structure would remain intact. Is this possible with Windows Server 2003 SP2? ANY responses appreciated. ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
