Question : Error Demoting W2K DC with dcpromo

I am trying to demote a Windows 2000 DC using dcpromo.  I am getting the error "the operation failed because: managing the session with .rohnlaw.com failed.  logon failure:  the target account name is incorrect."  I am also having some problems with AD replication between my DC's and I believe this is all related.  I want to get this DC properly demoted so I can narrow things down to just the two DC's we have left.  I haven't been able to find anything in Microsoft's KB or on EE.  Any ideas?

Answer : Error Demoting W2K DC with dcpromo

Hi
Just going through your complete posting - are you sure that you've cleaned up active directory completely and removed all references of all domain controllers that are no longer domain controllers - when using ntdsutil you'll need to connect to the existing dc.
As you said earlier:-
"ROHNFS1 is the one I'm trying to demote because we aren't using it any longer (ROHNSLAW1 is a DC that the hardware failed so it was never properly demoted either)" - If this server no longer exists on the network then you will definitely need to clean it out from AD - same for the DC that you ran the forceremoval on - you'll also need to clear out dns records fully as described:

On your existing main dc - run the following from a command prompt

netdom query fsmo
and make sure all the roles are listed for ROHNSERVER - also run this command on the other DC and if the roles are different then you may well need to forceremove that - ensure active directory has been cleaned of all references to dc's that aren't dc's, dns and AD sites and services - then you should be able to rejoin the server to the domain and repromote it

Go through this carefully and then be very careful using adsi edit:
How to remove data in Active Directory after an unsuccessful domain controller demotion
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216498

Deb :))