Question : a domain controller could not be contacted for the domain.HQ.Bigfirm.com

The operation failed because: A domain controller could not be contacted for the domain.hq.Bigfirm.com that containted an account for this computer. Make the computer a member of a workgroup then rejoin the domain before retrying the promotion "The Specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted"

This is error message when i tried to remove active directory by dcpromo. The active directory is screwed up , so i want to remove and install it again. but this error wont let me do anything , What should i do , any suggestions please ?

Answer : a domain controller could not be contacted for the domain.HQ.Bigfirm.com

Windows 2000/2003 Domain controllers can be demoted gracefully by running the dcpromo command. Sometimes the demotion does not happen gracefully. so u need to run the dcpromo/forceremoval command. This though demotes the domain controller and make it a member of the domain, but the metadata of the domain controller remains in the domain and will not allow you to assign the role of a domain controller with the same name.


Check your OS on the Domain Controller.

If it is windows 2003,use ntdsutil tool from the sp 1 to remove the domain controller from the domain.

Follow the steps

1. Go to command prompt and type ntdutil .. (Check u have windows support tools installed on the computer from where you want to run the cleanup).
2. type "metadata cleanup". note that there should be space between the metadata and cleanup.
3. type connections.
4. type connect to server . in the servername type the name of the server to which u connect to,in order to cleanup the metadata.
5. type q
6. type "select operation target."
7. type "list domains".
8. type select domain .  this is the number displayed against the name of domain in the list retrieved from the prev command.
9. type "list sites".
10. type "select site ".
11. Type "list servers in site"
12. type select server
13. type q
14. type remove selected server.
15. this will prompt you if u want to remove the server or not.
16. Once u r through with step 15. go to the dns  server and remove any records available for the domain controller.
17. Additionally u can check against the adSI.EDIT Tool and check for any existence of the domain controller in the domain partition and the config partition.
18. Force a replication using replmon tool.
19. Setup the new server.

Hope this resolves your problem of the domain controller.

Rakesh