the worse problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gerson Guimaraes
  • Start date Start date
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Gerson Guimaraes

Hi all,

I had a problem with AD 2k domain in a customer site. There was only one AD
server (that is ad), well service packed, well hot fixed, well backuped. My
customer is poor and I'm one of that professional hero. Brazilian hero! You
can't imagine that.

Well, all services were ok for 5 months, but a day, a nightmare arrived. No
network services were ready that day. All stopped and the users requering
for fast solution.I noticed the server doesn't know who it was. I deleted
DNS zones, uninstall and reinstall DNS and I restarted the server.
Nothing!! I tried to open AD Users and Computers and a beautiful message "No
Domain controller found or domain does not exist" was shown for my eyes
only. All the master roles was down. No netlogon, no server services. I
thought by myself. This stupid server is missing
itself. Ok, no problem, http://support.microsoft.com will help me. Yes,
internet browsing was still functioning, but no one recomendations was
enough... No problem, I had a lot of tape backups on the shelf...Yes, for
my enjoy, no one solve the problem.I step back the version of system state
and system area until last july. After each system restore, the same problem
was verified. I couldn't believe it.I tried to find some similar situation
in the internet. Yes, at www.google.com (good site to find answers) I found
one record. A fellow had the same problem before, the same messages, all
seeming like my problem, but no answer for that despaired solicitation had
reached him.
What to do? I thought by myself: If it is a hardware problem, I will
reinstall the Windows 2K Server to see what happen...I did that and all the
situation was normalized again...
Active directory was healthy. A big ? in my head stayed for several
minutes... What to
do? Ok, I tried restoring the last day backup once more. Believe it if you
can: the old problem came back.
Well, if you had patience to read this case until now, maybe you can help me
to know the best practice to restore a tape backup when something is not
going well with the operating system. All that I did failed. I did hot
restore, cold restore and nothing... *!=)&%@%%%%
Ok, to finish there wasn't much to do. I reinstalled Windows 2000 from the
beginning, I applied all the fixes, only 20 users account, only 20 computer
profiles to recustomize. I spent 23 hours to recover the site (19 hours
searching and trying several alternatives and only 4 hours to redo it). I
hate when I waste time and it seems I was predicting something, because some
weeks ago
I sent a message to this MCT newsgroup ("In case of disaster recovery...")
but I didn't receive any reply. Perhaps only one reply could have prevented
this case, but no problem,
I'm trying again in this opened group.
If you notice my mistake(s) please tell me. All considerations will be
appreciated.

Thanks,

Gerson
 
Have you tried going back a couple of days in the tape backups? Possibly the corruption that was to kill you was backed
up in the latest backup. Also how often do you test your backups to make sure they are good and working, it is possible
you never had a good working backup.
 
Gerson,

did you have a look at the event log for that night when everything failed?
 
Hi Katherine / Hi Joe Richards:

Thanks for your answers.

Katherine: Yes there were errors. I checked all of them at technet. No
success.
I tried almost 50 alternatives to try bringing the system up.

Joe: I tried to restore a backup from july, 3 months ago.

I'm interested now to review good practices to do a disaster recovery
process.
If you have more than one DC it's easier, but I'm not safe about restores
when you have only one DC.
In this case, suppose your system is not well. You have a month ago backup
from your C: + System State and nothing or a little was modified since that.
a) Is it necessary to format the system area and reinstall a fresh windows
2000 server copy?
b) Do you can only bring the restore back, without reinstalling anything?
b) What happen if you restore only the system state?

Sorry about the question but I'm not really safety about this process...

Thanks again,

Gerson
 
Hi Joe:

I answered your question in the same Katherine reply. Thanks for your prompt
answer.

Gerson
Joe Richards said:
Have you tried going back a couple of days in the tape backups? Possibly
Click to expand...
the corruption that was to kill you was backed
up in the latest backup. Also how often do you test your backups to make
Click to expand...
sure they are good and working, it is possible
 
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