Windows Server 2008 R2 Crashed

[G33kman]

So the other day our HR lady was on a website of some sort and SEP caught and quarantined a severe virus... Now yesterday our Primary DC (PDC) stopped working (still able to log in) so luckily I had our other server setup as a Backup DC (BDC) so we're limping along right now. I am in the process of backing up a local copy of the files on the PDC but I worked from yesterday at 10 am until 10:30 last night trying to get the PDC to work correctly again without success...

I'm running into errors all over the place and frankly, I am running out of options on ways to solve the issue.

I am to the point where I'm thinking it's getting to the point I've dreaded the most (reinstall) I would list out the things that I've tried but I'd be here for an hour writing a book.

I have re-added the ADDS, DNS, and DHCP roles but they're still erroring out and I have the static IP setup but it's not able to connect to the internet or see any local machines. The main errors I'm seeing are "The DNS Server is not responding" and "The server is not operational" I've checked and double checked the settings and everything is correct. I'm thinking if I am going to have to reinstall should I just move on to WS2016 (or even WS2012) or should I stick with WS2008 R2. I know it's not going to be too long till I'm going to need to upgrade anyway so I was tossing around these options last night and wanted some input.

Thanks,

Ryan

[jared404]

If you have a fully operational backup, I would migrate to 2012R2 and call it done. Have you tried removing SEP to see if it is causing all of these issues?

[G33kman]

Yeah, I removed it and unfortunately no luck... I was kind of dreading that answer. I have a feeling it's about to be a long weekend of work. Lol

[leadeater]

As long as it's only running Windows Server Roles and no other 3rd party software just reinstall, it's actually safer to do it that way if you know you have another good DC on the network.

 

Make sure you move the FSMO roles to the other DC before reinstalling.

[G33kman]

Perfect! Thanks for your help.

[Blake]

On 9/23/2017 at 2:22 AM, G33kman said:

I am in the process of backing up a local copy of the files on the PDC but I worked from yesterday at 10 am until 10:30 last night trying to get the PDC to work correctly again without success...

Looks like your running other services on a DC. Try to avoid that. Depending on your licenses, grab a copy of hyper-V server 2016 and domain join it, then use RSAT\Hyper-V manager to spin up a VM that can run as a Dedicated DC.

 

Depending on your confidence level. spin up a server 2008 R2 Core instance and install the DC on that, if you can get the licensing for server 2016 use that instead, just make sure you upgrade your domain/forest functional levels.

 

Also keep in mind that you'll likely need to use Ntdsutil.exe to seize any of the lost FSMO roles, if you are able to spin up the pdc first and do a transfer, that would obviously be better.

[Jarsky]

Don't bother trying to fix a DC for more than a couple of hours.

 

As @leadeater suggested, just install a new server. Ensure BDC seizes the FSMO role first. Once that's confirmed, hen promote the new PDC server to a DC.

Once all configured and sync'd then move FSMO back to the new PDC.

 

You can install the new DC with whichever OS version you want, it might be a good idea to upgrade PDC to 2016 if you have it in your budget.

Theres no need to upgrade your functional level yet though. You want to keep that on whatever the version is of your lowest participating DC (in this case BDC on 2008 R2).

If you wish to raise the level, once PDC is running properly and stable, then demote BDC and do the same thing as with PDC. Once both are on 2016, only then raise the functional level.