Deleted Domain System Volume. How to recreate it; I have no backups

dfsreplication

As the title suggest I am basically screwed. Before all this happen; I had one problem: My group policies were not replicating from PDC to other DCs. I have three Dc's in production.

Policies Residing in PDC (Dc1)

Policies Residing in DC2

Policies Residing in DC3

As you can see Policy number (78B9346A) which was created on Dec 22nd in PDC did not replicate to the two other DC's. I also created a test file on the Sysvol folder for DC1 and it didn't replicate to the other DC's. You can see that in the image below:

Test file created in Sysvol in PDC

Prior to the replication issue all my Dc’s were running Windows Server 2008 R2. Now they are running Windows Server 2012. They have been upgraded and everything worked fine except the replications. I installed the DFS role on my PDC. When I looked at the replication group setup for Domain System Volume, it included one of the Decommissioned Dc’s as a member. I figured that is causing the replication problem. I tried to edit the replication group but I couldn’t, so I deleted and tried to recreate it. That is when all the issue popped up. When I recreated the group:

replication Group

I started getting the event ID 6410 and 6002.

Event 6410 says: The DFS Replication service failed to initialize replicated folder C:\Windows\SYSVOL\domain because the service detected that one of its working folders overlaps a Windows system folder. This is an unsupported configuration.

Event 6002 says: The DFS Replication service detected invalid msDFSR-Subscriber object data while polling for configuration information.
I went back to DFS management and run a diagnostic report and I got the error below:

Health report

Now, I am clueless on what to do next and how to get the replication up and running. Some of the computers in my environment receives the policies, and some don’t. I really appreciate any help that will help me fix this issue. I have no backup, so I can perform an authoritative restore. Thanks in advance for any replies and I am sorry if I posted this in the wrong place.

Best Answer

You have to use Ldifde to recreate CN=Domain System Volume. Export CN=Domain System Volume from another domain controller, then modify the export file to match the name of the DC that's missing Domain System Volume and reimport it.

Look in ADSIEdit to see what I'm talking about:

DFSR

Export:

LDIFDE –f output.txt –d "CN=Domain System Volume,CN=DFSR-LocalSettings,CN=AnotherDC,OU=Domain Controllers,DC=dom,DC=com" –p base

Then change the exported file - update the dn: (Distinguished Name) and the msDFSR-MemberReference so that the dn: corresponds to the domain controller that is missing its CN=Domain System Volume, and the msDFSR-MemberReference refers to CN=AnotherDC,DC=Topology,CN=Domain System Volume,CN=DFSR-GlobalSettings,CN=System,DC=domain,DC=com

Then import it back in with Ldifde -i -f import.txt

Hope that helps. Ldifde is the only way to recreate the Domain System Volume subscription. If none of your DCs have Domain System Volume objects... then, you are pretty well screwed. This is why we take backups of things. (And don't use the DFSR Management GUI to mess with Sysvol.)

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