Blog Post

ITOps Talk Blog
2 MIN READ

Step-By-Step: Manually Removing A Domain Controller Server

AnthonyBartolo's avatar
AnthonyBartolo
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Nov 01, 2018
Use of DCPROMO is still the proper way to remove a DC server in an Active Directory infrastructure. Certain situations, such as server crash or failure of the DCPROMO option, require manual removal o...
Updated Dec 23, 2021
Version 5.0
Anthony Bartolo
Windows Server
MichaelShen's avatar
MichaelShen
Copper Contributor
Oct 03, 2021

Hi there

 

I somehow clicked on force removal during the removal process , then ended up with a dangling mess

 

now I am trying to manually clean 

 

I got the same problem at step 3;

 

anyway, it is good to know the AD can be manually cleaned

 

C:\>ntdsutil
ntdsutil: metadata cleanup
metadata cleanup: remove selected server KKDC
Binding to localhost ...
Connected to localhost using credentials of locally logged on user.
LDAP error 0x22(34 (Invalid DN Syntax).
Ldap extended error message is 0000208F: NameErr: DSID-0310022D, problem 2006 (BAD_NAME), data 8350, best match of:
'CN=Ntds Settings,KKDC'

Win32 error returned is 0x208f(The object name has bad syntax.)
)
Unable to determine the domain hosted by the Active Directory Domain Controller (5). Please use the connection menu to specify it.