Question : GROUP POLICY FOLDERS ON SYSVOL MISSING

For whatever reason, my sysvol folder does not contain any of my group policy folders..   I had about 12 group policies that show up in the Management Console, but every time I try to edit it it states it failed to open the group policy object and the system cannot find the path.    I've looked in the SYSVOL of my other 3 DCs and I don't see any.  I suspect it suppose to be in the netlogon share somewhere... I can recall seing them in there at one time or another.

Question 1.  Can I restore these directories to one of the DC from tape and have AD just replicate them or is this NOT THE WAY TO DO IT.
Question 2.  I demoted one of our DCs a week or so ago... I'm sure it had something to do with that.  Is there an easier way to get at these GP files without going back to tape?

I have lots of custome GPs so redoing them is really not an option unless I have no choice.

Please advise.

Thanks

Answer : GROUP POLICY FOLDERS ON SYSVOL MISSING

Your GPO's aren't stored in netlogon: domain.com\sysvol\domain.com\scripts.

They are stored in the policies folder: domain.com\sysvol\domain.com\policies\
Each policy is located in a folder under the above folder.

Question 1: Yes you can restore the files and have AD replicate them.  As long as replication isn't broken.  I would probably restore the files to an alternate location and then copy then into the policies folder manually.

Question2:  It could be the issue, but I've never seen that happen.  If you deleted the files on the DC you removed before you demoted it, it would wipe them out on the remaining DC's.

Here's what I would do.

I would first make sure replication is working by placing a file in the policies folder and seeing if it replicates to the other DC's.  I would also check the FRS event logs on the DC.  If it is not you will have to something like at this link: http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBQ/tip8400/rh8481.htm

If replication is working, I would then delete the above file and then go to tape and restore teh GPO's to a different location and move to the policies folder one by one.

The Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) includes a new backup feature that allows backing up and restoring policies in case these are deleted or corrupted.  A backup script is included with the installation of GPMC that can be used as a scheduled task to back up these policies on a regular basis.  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/gpmc/gpmcintro.mspx