Windows – Secondary 2003 Domain Controller from a Primary NT4 Domain Controller

active-directorydomain-controllerwindowswindows-server-2003

I'm working on a migration NT4 Server Domain Controller to 2003 Active Directory DC, first step is to install a Secondary DC running Windows Server 2003 on a brand new computer.

I joined this machine to the domain, logged in with an account who is an Domain Administrator, and now I'm trying to dcpromo as a Secondary DC.

On the next screen I'm asking to put informations (username, password and domain) I get an error saying something like "No Active Directory DC named domdom.lan (my test domain) can be reached".

I successfully created a NT4 BDC, I can add rights to other users and navigate/search into them, I can tracert and ping the PDC without any troubles… I don't understand why it doesn't work, so please help me. 🙂

Ponpon

Best Answer

This isn't how you upgrade an NT4 domain to active directory. You have 2 options:

  1. Create a new Active Directory domain and migrate all computers and users into the new domain
  2. Upgrade the NT4 server to run Server 2003. During the upgrade process, it will convert the domain to Active Directory. Obviously, make sure you have a good backup first.

Here's Microsoft's white paper on the process. I'd consider it required reading.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/9/6/2964bd25-6221-45a3-8115-a547cd640cd4/NT4domtoad.doc

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